This testimony exemplifies the concerns and fears many parents experience when their lives are affected by mental illness. The evidence from our study of 40 families where parents have mental illness (Table 2.1) clearly shows that the prime concerns of parents with mental health problems relate to the prognosis of their illness and, more significantly, how this will affect their children in terms of their development and their transition into adulthood. Many parents, as we have just read, also feel that the onset and chronicity of their mental illness seriously undermines their parenting skills. This effect is heightened when they do not receive effective treatment or support. Some parents recognise that others, not least professionals and those in local communities, consider the parenting skills of adults with mental illness to be inadequate or ineffective because of the presence of mental ill health, and that parents in these contexts are unable to protect their children from harm or neglect (the stigma associated with mental ill health when parents are thus affected is discussed later in this chapter).

It is clear from our evidence – and elsewhere, in fact – that mental illness in and of itself does not necessarily put the children of parents thus affected at increased risk of physical or psychological harm (see also Chapter One of this volume). However, we know that children's experiences of caring for, and coresidency with, parents who have mental health problems can be negative.