Mary Skorupa is the Coordinator of the Child and Family Support program at the Mental Health Association in Erie County.

For years, parents of children with emotional and behavioral disabilities have been viewed as "part of the problem" by many providers of children’s mental health services. Rarely valued for their experience and ability to significantly contribute, parents were often excluded from their children’s treatment plans or used solely for the purpose of obtaining information concerning the family, child and family relationships. Even when professionals began to involve families in their child’s care through "family therapy" in the 1950's and 1960's, they did so with the intention of "fixing" the family. Parents had no say in the decision-making surrounding their child’s care.

Unfortunately, the mind set of excluding or devaluing parents’ experience and knowledge of their children continues today in some instances. In providing family support services to families of children with serious emotional or behavioral disabilities, I have been, at times, horrified at the treatment parents have been subjected to by mental health professionals. Parent advocates as well are sometimes not valued by the professionals they work with. This is an unfortunate loss of an important tool in helping children and families.

Many mental health professionals have come to understand that parent-professional partnership is an important component of any successful system of care. It is occurring in many creative forms, and as a result, participants in systems of care are working out new and innovative ways to provide mental health services for children. Collaboration between parents and the providers involved in their child’s care often results in services that respond more fully to the needs of the child, the family and the community. In parent-professional partnerships families are being accepted for their knowledge and ideas about how to improve services to their children and how to strengthen the service delivery system.

Participants in systems of care have identified a range of components important for collaboration. One list developed by DeChillo, Koren and Merezaa (1997) summarizes 26 frequently mentioned elements into five characteristics:

1. A caring, non-blaming attitude toward the family

2. Sharing information

3. Recognition of the family as a key resource

4. Recognition of the limits and the existence of other responsibilities

5. Shared responsibility and power in the relationship

With the current shift toward designing true "systems of care" for children’s mental health in Erie County, it is even more important for parents and mental health service providers to join together in a mutually respectful and collaborative effort that will serve the needs of the child and the family in more useful ways. The Erie County Department of Mental Health has made a commitment to parent-professional partnership as an important component of its wraparound programs in children’s mental health. Programs such as the Home and Community Based Services Waiver Program and the R.E.S.P.E.C.T. programs offer an array of services based on what the family identifies as needs. These programs focus on the family strengths instead of pathology with family members identified as the core elements of the treatment team. The Single Point of Accountability process now being designed in Erie County also promises to focus on family strengths, parents as partners, parents as part of the solution and child and family valued outcomes.

The primary purpose of parent-professional partnership is to improve services for children and families. More and more mental health professionals are making certain that parents are included in a meaningful way in all decisions being made about the mental health services provided to their children. They realize that when parents have been listened to and truly heard during the planning process and the development of services, they are able to commit to and take ownership of the plan, resulting in greater successes for children and families.