Children who care for parents with mental ill-health
Where parents suffer from poor emotional well-being or mental ill-health, there is often a child or young person within the family that steps into a caring role. The Children’s Society estimates that 800,000 child and young people are young carers and Saul Becker, a leading academic on young carers estimates around a quarter of these are caring for an adult with mental ill-health.
Furthermore, young carers are very often hidden from view, perceiving their caring role as just part of everyday life, and do not identify as young carers. Indeed, the Children’s Society estimates that 39% of young carers have not told anyone of the caring role they carry out. There is also some evidence of a correlation between parents with mental ill-health and the young carer also suffering mental health condition, which goes beyond the impact that caring might have on their well-being.
Professionals supporting parents with mental ill-health are therefore helping not just the adults in the family home but will often also be alleviating the situation for the children or young people in the home with a caring role. Information on the support available for young carers in Dorset and the pathway for accessing this can be found at Dorset Young Carers Service
It may be very difficult for young people to acknowledge their parent’s mental ill-health; they may feel stigma or shame, and they may fear that talking about it will lead to their being taken into care. Practitioners should be alert to ‘implicit disclosures’; words or actions on the part of the young person that do not fully disclose the issue, but nonetheless indicate that they are concerned.
Young people often think that they have already communicated their distress through their behaviour or by ‘testing out’ a response from a professional by only telling them part of their story. This is part of the help-seeking behaviour that children develop from babyhood. It is crucial that professionals respond to this help-seeking behaviour, and especially where it raises safeguarding concerns. Where young people ‘test out’ the response of professionals, by telling them part of their story or something that is concerning them, professionals should follow this up with the young person by asking questions such as:
What would you like help with?
What would you like to happen now that you have told me this?
Stop and think; analyse the information shared by the child with professionals who know the child and family, and if you believe that the child may be at risk of significant harm, make a referral. Never say you will keep information that the child has shared confidential, but do assure them that you will help them to be safe.
You should also go back to the young person once safeguarding action has been taken to ask them whether this was the response they were hoping for, or if they hoped for something different.
MYTIME supports young carers across Dorset. The following sample case study from MYTIME illustrates some of the difficulties that young carers face:
For more information from MYTIME on the potential impact of caring on children and young people, see:
Young carers supporting parents with mental ill health
For information from the Royal College of Psychiatrists, please see:
Parental mental illness: for parents and carers: this webpage is describes some of the challenges encountered by children who have a parent with a mental illness and gives some practical advice as to how to deal with these problems.
Storm Break Home Start is an organisation that can provide mental health support in schools, but they also offer resources for support that parents can use for their children at home.
HOW MAY CARING FOR A PARENT WITH MENTAL ILL HEALTH AFFECT A CHILD?
Children who are living with an adult with mental ill health can experience a number of challenges because of their caring role. Such as:
- High levels of anxiety and a belief that the sadness or negative emotions their parent is facing is because of something they have done wrong.
- Constantly worrying about the person, they care for. This can impact their education, causing them to be distracted at school or staying at home to keep their parent safe.
- Feeling angry and/or frustrated at not understanding the behaviour of the parent with mental ill health.
- Feelings of isolation and loneliness. Young people caring for a parent with mental ill health are often isolated from their peers, this could be because they cannot take part in social activities or clubs other young people their own age are.
- Fear that if they share their parents’ mental ill health with anyone that they will be ‘taken away’ by social services.
- Feeling responsible for their parent who has mental ill health which leads to them sacrificing their own needs to care for that person or their siblings.
- Suicidal thoughts/self-harming because of the fear or pressure of living with a parent who has mental ill health. In Surrey, 3 young people caring for a parent who has mental ill health have taken their own lives in recent years.
- Challenges around transitions from primary to secondary school. At primary school young carers are more likely to report feeling supported by their classroom teacher or pastoral worker. Fear of being seen as different and a desire to fit in increase when young carers enter secondary school, therefore young carers are less likely to ask for support.
- Challenges around transitioning from school/college to university. Young carers can struggle to leave home because they do not have someone who can take over their caring role or do not wish to pass on their responsibility to younger siblings.
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