FWA Newpin ‐ Working With Parents With Mental Health Problems And Their Young Children
| Pages | 23-27 |
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.1108/13619322200600038 |
| Published date | 01 December 2006 |
| Date | 01 December 2006 |
| Author | Jacqui Lederer,Marian McHugh |
| Subject Matter | Health & social care |
FWA Newpin – Working With Parents
With Mental Health Problems
And Their Young Children
Jacqui Lederer
Development Manager
Family Welfare Association
Marian McHugh
Practice Development Manager
Family Welfare Association
Focus on…
tany one time in the UK,
approximately 1.7 million parents with a mental illness
will be caring for some 2.5 million children and
between 10 and 15% of all parents giving birth will
suffer from postnatal depression (Department of
Health, 2002).
People with mental illness and their families are a
particularly vulnerable group, experiencing social
isolation, poor antenatal care, low socio-economic
status, lower educational achievement and fewer social
supports (Mayberry et al, 2005). These factors,
together with the impact of the parent’s mental illness,
can mean increased risk to the children of such
families and indicate the need for holistic services able
to consider both the mental health needs of the parent
and the emotional development of the children.
One such service is FWA Newpin which provides
centre-based structured support for parents and their
children under five where there is a range of identified
mental health and parent/child relationship difficulties.
FWANewpin service
Originally set up in Southwark in the early eighties by
agroup of professionals at Guy’sHospital, Newpin
services developed independently during the eighties
and nineties and transferred to the Family Welfare
Association in April 2004.
Newpin utilises a non-stigmatising, strengths-
Abased approach based on 25 years’ experience of
involving service users and a track record of reaching
at-risk groups who have been otherwise difficult to
engage. The main theoretical basis for this approach is
attachment theory, and Pound (1994) has linked the
therapeutic effects of Newpin to its stability and
availability, the centre itself becoming an object of
attachment.
Attachments formed between parents and staff,
children and staff, parents and other parents, and
children and other children remain key to the
Newpin process. The relatively long-term (two to
three years) and the containing nature of the model is
an important aspect of working with parents1with
mental health difficulties, which range from postnatal
depression to bipolar affective disorder, anxiety
disorder and schizophrenia.
An evaluation of Newpin showed a significant
improvement in the mental health of parents and an
improvement in parents’ abilities to recognise and
meet their children’sneeds (Cox et al, 1990). What
Works In Parenting Support, a recent Policy Research
Bureau review of international evidence,
commissioned by the Department for Education
and Skills, cited Newpin as the best UK example of
aparenting programme. The authors concluded that
Newpin makes a significant difference to the mental
health of some clients and point to the evidence
demonstrating the need for interventions of longer
duration to meet certain kinds of parenting support
needs (Moran et al, 2004).
The Mental Health Review Volume 11 Issue 4 December 2006 ©Pavilion Jour nals (Brighton) Limited 2006 23
1FWANewpin works with the main carers who arealmost always mothers; some Newpin centres also run fathers groups.
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