Parents’ experiences of individual work within CAMHS
Research type
Research Study
Full title
Parents’ experiences of individual work within a Community Child and Adolescent Mental Health Service.
IRAS ID
128251
Contact name
Ella Baruch
Contact email
Sponsor organisation
TAVISTOCK AND PORTMAN NHS FOUNDATION TRUST
Research summary
The association between parenting and child well-being is well established. However, parents' capacity to parent is influenced by inter-related contextual and individual factors, including parental well-being and mental health. As a result Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services (CAMHS) often carry out individual therapeutic work with parents both to support their parenting and to address their own emotional and mental health needs. To further enhance availability of care, some services have incorporated specialist parent mental health workers into CAMHS teams. This model of service delivery has not yet been evaluated. Similarly, despite an emphasis in policy on service-user participation, there is relatively little research exploring service users’ experience of CAMHS.
This study will therefore use a qualitative approach to explore the experience of parents receiving individual work within CAMHS. The study will investigate what parents see as the purpose and focus of this work, how parents feel the CAMHS intervention impacted on them and their child and whether they feel it brought about any changes. Semi-structured interviews will be carried out with 10 parents who have received this service within a community CAMHS team. The data will be analysed using thematic analysis. The findings will aim to inform practice within services that take this approach to working with parents, or that are considering adapting their work in this way.
REC name
London - London Bridge Research Ethics Committee
REC reference
14/LO/0637
Date of REC Opinion
20 Jun 2014
REC opinion
Further Information Favourable Opinion