Family members are often the main source of support for their mentally ill relatives and the flow on effects of caring for someone with mental illness can cause significant practical and emotional burdens on the family. Face-to-face family interventions have demonstrated effectiveness, but many families are either not able or choose not to access such support. Face-to face contacts may not be at a time or place accessible for these families or attending meetings may be one more demand that is too difficult to attend to. Traditional family programs focus on providing educational information and/or problem-solving skills for families to cope with the behaviour of their mentally ill relative. There is often not sufficient focus on building the emotional resources of the carers, recognising the strengths of carers and other family members and further developing these to improve overall family wellbeing.
With this in mind the Family Connections project compares two correspondence recovery-based support programs for families:
(a) An INFORMATION only program which involves a book that focuses on providing knowledge of psychosis, its management, stages of recovery, and service and treatment options.
(b) The CONNECTIONS program provides a series of 12 newsletters mailed to participants over a 1 year period. These provide exercises aimed at helping family member’s move forward with their own lives, even with the reality of caring for a relative with mental illness. The newsletters cover topics such as what recovery is from the perspective of the person with mental illness and from a family perspective, raising awareness of personal reactions to illness, working with strengths, preparing for change, values clarification to help establish a personal and family vision for change, and guidance on goal setting and pursuit. Participants in this group also get the Information book.
Family members complete questionnaires on entry to the program and again at 6 months and 12 months. The questionnaires measure aspects of mental wellbeing, their knowledge and understanding of recovery and the quality of their relationships with their affected relative.
It is anticipated that:
1. Both groups will show similar increases in knowledge and understanding of mental illness, and effective use of mental health resources.
2. The CONNECTIONS group will show more effective coping, recovery, enhanced personal family relationships, quality of life and resilience, and better psychological well being than the INFORMATION only group.