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In a recent contribution to this journal, Cummings (2023) reports findings from a preliminary qualitative study of practitioner viewpoints regarding digitally delivered mental health support to care-experienced young people. Cummings' study highlights the need to engage with professional experiences of using digital methods with this group, both during and outside of the COVID-19 pandemic. A response to - and commentary on – Cummings' contribution is provided, to advance discussion of issues identified by the research. We reflect on our experience as practitioners and researchers working in and alongside specialist child and adolescent mental health service teams serving care-experienced children and young people. We focus on workspaces in remote working, therapeutic technique in online and telephone-based care, and virtues and challenges of remote care delivery. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Why you should read this article: • To enhance your knowledge of professional self-disclosure • To understand how mental health nurses can appropriately use professional self-disclosure in their work with foster carers • To learn about how approaches to self-disclosure changed during the shift to remote working during the COVID-19 pandemic Professional self-disclosure can be defined as a clinician revealing personal information about themselves to the person they are caring for. This article provides reflections from clinicians working in child and adolescent mental health services (CAMHS) and their navigation of professional self-disclosure during the coronavirus disease 2019 pandemic. The reflections focus on the use of self-disclosure in supportive relationships with foster carers. Drawing on the authors' practice experiences as clinicians in specialist CAMHS settings, the article considers changes in the way that self-disclosure was approached following the shift to remote care delivery during the pandemic. The authors suggest that remote working involves a potentially increased scope for inappropriate use of self-disclosure and outline the implications for mental health nurses working with foster carers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article describes a designated adoption lead role based in a specialist child and adolescent mental health service (CAMHS) team serving adopted children who are considered particularly vulnerable to experiencing mental health issues. Topics discussed include core aspects of the role of a specialist practitioner lead for adoption in a CAMHS team and methods of delivering advice, training, education and support to adoptive parents and adoption professionals.

Family Minds is a brief group psychoeducational parenting intervention designed to increase the reflective functioning (RF) and mentalization skills of foster parents. RF is important for foster parents who have to build relationships with children whose adverse experiences increase their risk for psychosocial challenges. A randomized controlled trial (RCT) for Family Minds was conducted in Texas with 89 foster parents. The main aims of this study were to examine whether the intervention could significantly increase the RF/mentalization skills of the foster parents and decrease their parenting stress. After 6 weeks, compared with the control group, intervention foster parents improved their RF via a lowering of pre-mentalizing and also significantly decreased parenting stress related to parent–child dysfunctional interactions. Other measures of RF and parenting stress showed no significant differences between groups. Foster child behavior was not significantly different between groups, although data at 6 months showed a possible lowering of internalizing symptoms for children of intervention parents. This RCT provides some encouraging evidence that Family Minds may increase RF in foster parents, improve parental sensitivity and their ability to emotionally regulate, decrease parenting stress related to challenging interactions with their foster children, and possibly decrease children's internalizing behavior. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

It is well established that looked after children are more likely to develop complex behavioural and emotional difficulties that can leave many carers struggling to help and understand the child. This can lead to the breakdown of placements whereby the lack of placement stability leaves the child even more vulnerable. The Family Minds (FM) psycho-educational and interactive programme is a newly developed intervention for groups of foster and adoptive parents. It lasts for nine hours and comprises elements of mentalisation-based family therapy, lectures, group exercises and homework, with the aim that parents will be able to better understand and support their fostered or adopted child through increased reflective functioning. In a study undertaken in Texas we evaluated whether there was a change in the parents’ reflective functioning (verbal mentalisation) pre- to post-FM training compared to a comparison group who experienced a ‘treatment as usual’ intervention comprising four hours of lecture information about trauma and attachment. Using five-minute speech samples pre- and post-training, we coded whether the capacity to think reflectively about oneself and one’s child altered in either training group. We found that, unlike the comparison group, parents in the FM group significantly increased their reflective functioning. This outcome was independent of several factors such as the age of the parent, age of the child and time as a carer. The only factor influencing the significant change was the training group in which the parent was placed. These findings suggest that this novel mentalisation-based psycho-educational training programme can successfully increase parents’ reflective functioning which, in turn, should enhance and strengthen the understanding and relationship between the foster/adoptive parent and the child and reduce negative outcomes. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Children and young people in foster and adoptive families are considered more vulnerable to a high level of mental health need when compared to peers who are not care-experienced or adopted. Acceptance of this view amongst clinical providers and policy makers has necessitated the development of specialist provision and dedicated care pathways within child and adolescent mental health services. In this provision, practitioner-initiated quality improvement projects help in appraising the effectiveness of clinical interventions in local contexts, as well as identifying areas for service learning and practice reflection. This article reports on the evaluation of a mentalisation-based psychoeducation group intervention for adoptive parents and foster carers. The evaluation activity took place in a single child and adolescent mental health service setting, starting during the COVID-19 pandemic, with the intervention being implemented online via videoconferencing. In the article, after introducing the intervention (based on the Family Minds model), an analysis of clinical data collected pre- and post-intervention is reported. Few results of the analysis regarding the two pre- and post-measures reached statistical significance, indicating only changes in the magnitude of stress in the parent/carer-child system. A series of reflections are posed that consider what this finding means in developing fit-for-purpose support for adoptive parents and foster carers in child and adolescent mental health service contexts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]