Family Initiatives: Consulting and Training Project

The high prevalence of parents recovering from mental illness means that families in recovery are everywhere. Engaging and supporting families effectively requires a “paradigm shift” with respect to the organization and structure of services, from the individual parent or child, to the family. More specifically, it requires an expanded level of integration across adult and child service systems, and cross-training for providers who have traditionally identified categorically, as adult OR child providers.

Working in partnership with the Heath Foundation of Central Massachusetts, Employment Options has created the Training and Consultation Project. Based on years of experience and expertise working with parents and families, we have developed an array of innovative trainings for parents, providers, and administrators, to support increased awareness and understanding of the strengths and needs of parents with mental illness, and the development of more family-centered, strengths-based services. Although flexible to meet your organization’s needs, most trainings are delivered as half-day (3 hours) or whole-day (6 hours) sessions. Trainings are generally co-facilitated by a parent-professional training team, offering multiple perspectives on the complex issues confronting families in recovery.

Customized Training and Consultation
Training and Consultation Project staff will work in an entirely collaborative process with your organization, to develop a customized training or consultation experience based on your organization’s specific needs and objectives.

Critical Issues for Families Recovering from Parental Mental Illness:
Half-Day  $600.00
This training offers an introduction to the critical issues and experiences for families affected by parental mental illness. Participants will be introduced to current research, and existing care-delivery principles and practices for parents recovering from mental illness and their children. The need for a paradigm shift will be discussed, and participants will be encouraged to consider where their organization and/or practices are with respect to this paradigm shift. This training is appropriate for family members, policy-makers, administrators, and providers (professional and paraprofessional) who want to increase their basic knowledge about parents with mental illness.

Learning objectives:

• Participants will become familiar with recent research on prevalence and risks related to parental mental illness.
• Participants will increase their understanding of the strengths and needs of families affected by parental mental illness.
• Participants will increase their awareness and understanding of the policy and practice issues related to parental mental illness.

Topics covered:

• Prevalence of parental mental illness
• Strengths and needs, including risks, of families affected by parent mental
• The need for a paradigm shift in policy and practice

Providing Services for Parents Recovering from Mental Illness and their Children: The Need for Systems Transformation: 
Half – Day  $800
This training offers a brief overview of the critical issues for and experiences of families recovering from parent mental illness, focusing on policy and practice barriers within both adult and child systems, to needed interventions. The need for a “paradigm shift” to strengths-based, family-centered approaches and practices is introduced. Family-centered practices are described with reference to existing state-of-the art care delivery, and necessary policy changes to support these practices are defined. Exercises using a logic modeling approach will facilitate identification of barriers and facilitators most relevant to their service community and practice. This training is intended for policy-makers, administrators, providers, local community leaders, and family members.

Learning objectives:

• Participants will increase knowledge about prevalence, strengths and need of parents recovering from mental illness and their children.
• Participants will increase their understanding of current policy and practice barriers to providing effective services for families affected by parental mental illness, and the need for a paradigm shift to strengths-based, family-centered approaches.
• Participants will learn about existing state-of-the art policies and practices
• Participants will identify strengths (facilitators) and needs (barriers) of their existing service system and/or practices with respect to working with families affected by parent mental illness.

Topics covered:

• Prevalence, strengths, and needs of families recovering from parent mental illness
• Policy and practice barriers to care delivery within the adult and child service systems
• Existing state-of-the-art policy and practices for families affected by parent mental illness
• Identification of current facilitators and barriers in participants’ service communities and practices

Engaging Parents Recovering from Mental Illness:
Providing Strengths-Based, Family-Centered Care Delivery: 
Half-Day $600   Whole-Day $1,200

• Part I (half-day): Current research on and approaches to services for parents with mental illness
• Part I I(half-day): State-of-the-Art: Need-driven care within a collaborative team goal planning process

This training offers an overview of existing, and evidenced-based programs and practices for parents recovering from mental illness, in combination with a more in-depth training in two key elements of service delivery: Need-driven care and collaborative family team goal planning. Part I introduces participants to existing practices and relevant models from the adult and child arenas, including a description of the Family Options project. Part II offers participants a targeted training in the rationale for and delivery of need-driven care and collaborative family team goal planning. Part II includes participatory role-playing and other facilitative exercises designed in collaboration with your organization. This training is intended for family members, administrators, and providers. Parts I and II can be delivered separately.

Part I: Current research and approaches to services for parents with mental illness

Learning Objectives:

• Participants will become knowledgeable about existing programs and practices for families recovering from parent mental illness
• Participants will increase their knowledge about current evidenced-based approaches from the adult and child arenas
• Participants will become familiar with the Family Options project: an innovative, empirically-driven program for parents recovering from mental illness and their children.

Topics covered:

• Research on existing programs and practices for families in recovery from parent mental illness
• Relevant models from the adult and child arenas: Psycho-social rehabilitation, Children’s Systems of Care and the Wraparound Initiative
• Family Options: Innovative, empirically-driven intervention for families affected by parental mental illness

Part II: State-of-the-Art: Need-driven care within a collaborative team goal planning process

Learning Objectives:

• Participants will understand what need-driven care is and why it is important.
• Participants will understand what a family team, and a collaborative goal planning process is.
• Participants will understand why need driven care within a family team collaborative goal planning process is an effective strategy for working with parents recovering from mental illness and their children.
• Participants will gain experience with need driven, collaborative team goal planning.

Topics covered:

• The definition of and rationale for need-driven care.
• Definition and rationale for collaborative family team, and team goal planning process.
• Creation and implementation of a collaborative team goal planning process.

Creating Family-Focused Programming in the Clubhouse Setting (in development)
This training will discuss the overlap between Clubhouse philosophy and practice and family-centered, strengths-based programming. Using the development and implementation of the Family Options Project, an innovative, empirically-driven demonstration program for parents recovering from mental illness and their children, the challenges of integrating family-focused programming in a traditionally individually-focused setting will be detailed. Facilitators and barriers to development and implementation will be highlighted. Exercises will be used to help participants identify family programming goals and relevant facilitators and barriers.

Parent Peer Specialists (in development)

We hope to be able to offer Parent Peer Specialist training in the future.