Understanding and Helping Families: Parents With Psychosis

Inclusion Criteria for parents with psychotic illnesses 1. Presence of ICD-10 schizophrenia-spectrum diagnosis (F20-29). 2. Primary parental caregiver for index child. This includes 10 hours of contact time with their child. 3. Over 18 years of age. 4. Have at least one child aged 3-10 years old. 5. Identify difficulties in parenting during assessment. 6. Proficient in written and spoken English. 7. Capacity to provide informed consent. Exclusion Criteria for parents with psychotic illnesses 1. Parents with a schizophrenia-spectrum diagnosis who have recently been discharged from acute in-patient care, and have less than four weeks of stabilisation. This will enable the individual sufficient time to readjust to living in the community and ensure symptom stabilisation before taking part in a study. 2. Parents who have no regular contact with the index child or where there is known intention for their child to be removed. 3. Parents who present with child protection of safeguarding issues. 4. Parents seeking or receiving support from services regarding child management issues. 5. Parents actively involved in other structured programmes. Inclusion Criteria matched comparison group of parents for stage 1 The comparison group of parents will be matched for age, education, socioeconomic status and family composition where possible 1. No previous history of psychotic illnesses. 2. Primary parental caregiver for index child. This includes 10 hours of contact time with their child. 3. Over 18 years of age. 4. Have at least one child aged 3-10 years old. 5. Identify difficulties in parenting during assessment. 6. Proficient in written and spoken English. 7. Capacity to provide informed consent. Exclusion Criteria for comparison group 1. Parents with schizophrenia-spectrum symptoms, diagnosis or history. 2. Parents who have no regular contact with the index child or where there is known intention for their child to be removed. 3. Parents seeking support from services regarding child management issues. 4. Parents actively involved in other structured programmes. 5. Parents/caregivers who do not have good working knowledge of English. They should have enough practical experience to be able to adequately use the English language to understand and respond to questions and to read and complete questionnaires. 6. Insufficient language or cognitive ability to participant fully or provide informed consent.