Parents and care givers of young people who attempt suicide or experience persistent suicidal ideation are at high risk themselves of experiencing stress, distress and trauma (Coker et al, 2019). Support services, however, tend to focus on the child or young person themselves, and parents may feel disempowered or sidelined, despite playing an important role in the ongoing care of the young person.
This paper reports on the findings of a qualitative research project, which was undertaken as a component of the larger Child and Youth Hope (CY Hope) service evaluation at Alfred Health. The CY Hope service is a new service, coming out of the recommendations of the Royal Commission into Victoria’s Mental Health System, and building on the existing Adult Hope service. In addition to direct clinical and psychosocial support to the young person concerned, CY Hope includes a family peer worker as well as other services to support the parents and other care givers. As well as the overall project considering outcomes for young people, our evaluation conducted interviews with a small group of parents and care givers to determine their experiences and perspectives on the care received by their child or young person as well as the support they received themselves, both directly and indirectly.
Seven family members of young people participated in face-to-face or telephone interviews around their experiences and their perspectives on the CY-Hope service. These included five mothers, one father and one partner. Thematic analysis of the interview data revealed that family members felt their distress was relieved by the CY Hope service in two ways: direct support for the parent; and indirect release of stress through knowing that their child/partner was receiving support. Direct parent support took the form of both psychosocial care (through contact with a family peer worker with lived experience of a child attempting suicide) and the ability to contact clinical staff and be connected to ongoing family care. Indirect support came through: seeing their child or partner be seen and held by the team and learn new strategies to manage their own distress; the work of the Hope team in improving parent/ child communication; and through providing connections to other parts of the service system, including schools and the local headspace service. Participants also identified elements of the CY Hope service which they found most useful, including immediacy, flexibility, outreach, accessibility and feeling cared for.