Parents Involved With Child Welfare: Their Perceptions of Mental Health Services

Abstract

Parents involved with child welfare were interviewed to ascertain their experiences with the outpatient mental health treatment they and their children had received. Semi-structured interviews consisting of open ended questions were conducted with 20 parents recruited from three agencies providing home-based services to children and families referred by child welfare. Interviews were audio-recorded and transcribed. Transcripts were analyzed using the traditional qualitative iterative approach of reading and re-reading transcripts to identify patterns in the data. Four primary themes emerged from the analysis: relationships with therapists, perceived treatment benefits, availability and accessibility of services and therapists, and treatment expectations. Recommendations for practice and for future research are made.

KEYWORDS:

• mental health treatment
• treatment barriers
• treatment participation
• child welfare
• high-risk families

Additional information

Funding

The study was funded by a grant from the National Institute of Mental Health, “Service Participation by Families of Maltreated Children” (5K01MH068473).