The Family Model was a core component of the Crossing Bridges programme, and its aim was to aid a greater understanding of the complex interplay between mental ill health in parents, the development and mental health of their children, and the relationships within family units affected by mental ill health. The model has proved extremely durable, and in this handbook the Family Model has been extensively revised and refined in the light of developments in the field over the last 10 years. Many features have been retained whilst enhancements have been added to ensure contemporary relevance in an ever-growing field. This enhanced Family Model provides the conceptual framework to support clinical approaches to family focused practice. Additional principles have been added, including a service dimension to ensure that service provision is explicitly incorporated into thinking and practice, and a culture and community component to ensure that broader factors influencing individuals and impacting on family life are also addressed. The handbook comes with a fully interactive CD-rom to aid a greater understanding of the Family Model and to explain in a visually engaging way the principles of this approach to working with families affected by mental ill health. Vital information for: Clinicians; voluntary sector workers; policy makers and managers and trainers in mental health and children's services.
Adrian Falkov author of The Family Model Handbook Dr Adrian Falkov is a child and adolescent psychiatrist who trained and practised in London before moving to Sydney. He has extensive experience in the field, has authored a number of key texts and managed the development of the Crossing Bridges programme. He has worked in frontline clinical practice, research and policy development.
Chapter 1 - Introduction Chapter 2 - Overview: breadth, burden, barriers and benefits Chapter 3 - Conceptual approaches Chapter 4 - The Family Model: introduction Chapter 5 - The Family Model - Individual domains Chapter 6 - The Family Model: relationships and linkages between key domains Chapter 7 - The Family Model: approaches to practice Chapter 8 - Services and systems organisational frameworks Chapter 9 - Prevention and early intervention: achieving family focused mental health services Chapter 10 - Conclusions: challenging the status quo
