Children's Needs, Parenting Capacity: The Impact of Parental Mental Illness, Problem Alcohol and Drug Use and Domestic Violence on Children's Development

"This book is a must have for any Social work team. It has been so usefull to me in relation to risk assessment of parents with Mental Health difficulties. Several sections of the book give research which indecates predictors for risk. Thier are also some research findings which give guidance on likley outcomes of treatement sucess as well as predictors for the outcomes for children, of living with parents whos capacity is affected by substance abuse or mental health.

This is to some degree a small book with potential to have a big impact on not only assessment reports but support programes as well. This book also has the potential to help the client group that it speaks about, in family support we have used this inmformation to give clarity and purpose to focused short term work with parents. The information seems to enable some to accept our concerns with out seeing us as the people pointing the finger. The open and clear layout of the book the lack of jargaon also helps in this process.

Great book, how about one on the affects of borderline personality disorder and parents lack of empathic understanding on parenting."
~ Written on 2001-08-12

"This book is a must have for any Social work team. It has been so usefull to me in relation to risk assessment of parents with Mental Health difficulties. Several sections of the book give research which indecates predictors for risk. Thier are also some research findings which give guidance on likley outcomes of treatement sucess as well as predictors for the outcomes for children, of living with parents whos capacity is affected by substance abuse or mental health.

This is to some degree a small book with potential to have a big impact on not only assessment reports but support programes as well. This book also has the potential to help the client group that it speaks about, in family support we have used this inmformation to give clarity and purpose to focused short term work with parents. The information seems to enable some to accept our concerns with out seeing us as the people pointing the finger. The open and clear layout of the book the lack of jargaon also helps in this process.

Great book, how about one on the affects of borderline personality disorder and parents lack of empathic understanding on parenting."
~ Written on 2001-08-12

"What is different about this book, is its layout and that its dead easy to read.

Too often when you are working through an assessment report, you find yourself unsuccessfully hunting through various books to relate research to a child or young person's experience of a specific domain of their development, that you feel has been adversely affected.

You are aware as a practitioner that the impact of mental health, parental substance use and domestic violence can be quite dramatic on a young person's development. But you would like something concrete to back it up.

Well here's the very book. This book lays out what the research has shown, and what the interaction between these three issues being present may have on a child's development.

It lays out sections by age group as well as subsections that cover the various developmental areas such as language and cognitive development, social identity etc etc.

It has been really useful not only for myself, but also for others in the team and the team is now buying additional copies.

I would definitely recommend this for all child-care workers as it gives you an overview and cuts the myths away from the reality."
~ Written on 2001-05-29