Family Involvement in Mental Health Care

A Mother’s thoughts on the Need for Families
to be Involved in the Mental Health System
- Judy Williams

Family participation and involvement are the missing essential part of helping a family member control his/her illness, especially if the family is already actively involved. This is a very real problem with the mental health system.

Families need to be included as a crucial part of the recovery of a son/daughter. All staff in the [Santa Cruz County] mental health system, including Dominican, El Dorado, Community Services, Front Street Inc. and Community Connection, just to mention a few, would do well and learn a lot if they took the time to sit down and talk with the family. Most family members know their sons/daughters better than anyone does, especially if they are close. Those families who want to get involved need to be received by the mental health community with open arms.

The other important asset of recovery for the seriously mentally ill person is that the family is a great source of vital information. For an educated middle-class family it is critical to be included to help and give vital information for the benefit of the patient. If the family is a member of NAMI there are numerous books, booklets, brochures, videos and other current informative, educational tools to improve and help develop a sound, positive therapeutic approach to mental illness to be shared by all. The family is a great resource.

To open the successful door for a positive diagnosis, medication and treatment, family involvement is essential. A county coordinator to keep records of patients and parents who have written agreements for open door treatment is also needed. This does not mean to open all things personal to the patients, it means that all things relating to the mental illness can be discussed and evaluated together with family members and the mentally ill themselves or separately. It is important to include the ill member, but not always. There are some things that the family would be more comfortable in sharing without the patient present.

To have continuous improvement of the mental health system there needs to be an evaluation of staff work performance by those people receiving the service and family members/friends. People who have psychiatric disabilities have valuable knowledge and are an excellent resource for peer run groups. These groups would run skills training on how to participate in and effectively get what they want from a treatment program.

Families need training in the do's and don'ts of how to handle a severely mentally ill family member. It is obvious that most families want to help and do what is best for their ill family member. Do not think for one minute that a family wants to make things worst or do something to accentuate the situation, they want to help and may not know how!

Opinions expressed in this web site do not necessarily reflect the views of NAMI Santa Cruz County, NAMI California or any affiliated organizations. We attempt to present a balanced perspective on issues by presenting multiple viewpoints.

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