Workstreams: Early Intervention

Early Intervention and Family Work

Family work is essential in all families where one member experiences serious mental health difficulties.  It is likely to be even more relevant in early psychosis where many young people are still living with or are in regular contact with their families, or have young families of their own.

Early intervention teams have been establishing over the past four years across the UK, and in some areas are still in the process of developing.   Members of these teams are sometimes uncertain about the evidence for family work in early psychosis, or about how they can help families to cope with and adjust to what is happening in the family.

The Meriden Programme remains committed to providing training and support to EI services, and has run dedicated training courses tailored to these teams, with excellent feedback from participants on the relevance of the training for their work.

Currently there isn’t a specialised Meriden support group that meets to discuss family work in Early Intervention, but the program has run a number of specialised training courses and events, a number of which are referenced below.

Meriden Resources

Early Intervention DVD

The Meriden Programme is in the process of compiling a DVD that will focus on the experiences of families and carers of someone who has experienced a first episode of psychosis.  The focus is to give first hand encounters of their experiences and how teams can support families in their work. Watch this space for more details.

“Children Can Understand” by Heide Lloyd (2002)

A colouring booklet written and illustrated by Heide Lloyd, which tells the story of Ashley Brown Mouse, whose mummy is ill and has to go to hospital. Copies available through the Meriden Programme.

Early Intervention Reference List

A full reference list can be found in our Research, Publications and Resources section.

Related Articles and Resources

www.psych-sci.manchester.ac.uk/edie2/
Links to the Manchester University research project. This is a project designed to monitor people who may be at risk of developing a mental health problem and to evaluate a psychological treatment to see if it is helpful in preventing such difficulties. It is hoped that this will allow us to find out what factors are important in predicting who develops a mental health problem and whether or not a psychological treatment works to reduce these problems.

www.earlydetection.csip.org.uk
A valuable resource developed to highlight the best evidence and practice around the treatment of early psychosis, particularly focusing on the opportunity provided by detecting and treating those with an At Risk Mental State for Psychosis.

YouTube
British Columbia Schizophrenia Society’s  “Early Intervention Program”. This is available watch by typing ”psychosis, early intervention & recovery” and shows interviews of individuals and their families giving accounts if their own recovery experiences.

Meriden Conferences and Courses

• Family Work in Early Psychosis, June 2008
• BFT Training for Staff Working in Early Intervention in Psychosis report, 2008

Related Links

• www.youngminds.org.uk
  Gives advice and support to children and young people, carers/parents on all matters including psychosis.
• www.orygen.org.au
  Orygen are an early intervention and youth help service in Australia & have a wide range of support and information.  Links here also to Alison Yeung, and the CAARMS tool.
• Rethink Fact Sheet
  Helpful Rethink fact sheet pertaining to Early Intervention in Psychosis.
• www.iris-initiative.org.uk
  NIMHE's National Early Intervention Programme supports the development of Early Intervention in psychosis, and has enjoyed a long history of collaboration with IRIS, one of the driving forces behind the promotion of EI in England and beyond. This website incorporates many shared resources resulting from this collaboration.