Through a Facilitator's Eyes: The Power of KidsTime’s Whole-Family Approach 

True support means looking at the whole picture. Traditional services often treat a parent’s mental illness in isolation, leaving children to cope alone. Here, one of our KidsTime facilitators shares how our monthly workshops fundamentally shift this dynamic, implementing a whole-family approach to support parents directly and build a resilient, connected family ecosystem.

Why is KidsTime important?

KidsTime is important because it supports families where one of the parents or both parents have severe and enduring mental health difficulties and have children who often struggle to cope with their parents mental health problems and related issues such as poverty, housing, social issues and an overall compromised quality of life. Those parents often do not trust mental health services and do not engage in treatment due to past negative experiences with the system and for fear that if they are open about their struggles their children might be removed from their care.

Their children often present with insecure attachment styles and are likely to face problems at school but also discrimination and exclusion from their local communities as their parents faced due to stigma around their mental health. KidTime offers a safe space for both parents and children to explore issues such as mental and physical health, change, loss, relationships, stigma, endings but also understanding emotions and exploring ways to communicate better.

It also offers opportunities for families to link up, get information about local organisations and get access to NHS support when needed. Finally, it offers a space where they can be themselves without worrying they might be judged or criticised about their mental health or their circumstances.

How does KidsTime support families?

KidsTime supports families through the monthly workshops where they are invited to discuss their mental health difficulties and concerns they might have about their children and the impact of their mental health difficulties on them. Therapeutic input is offered in both verbal (adult groups) and non-verbal ways (drama therapy for children). Families are invited to explore a different theme every month such as communication, understanding emotions, coping with stress, and self-care among others. Families are also offered signposting to relevant community organisations and other activities such as exercise and other therapeutic activities. Families are also offered normalisation and validation of their difficulties and concerns and are invited to consider different cognitive and behavioural ways to cope with their mental health and everyday life issues.

What makes KidsTime unique?

What makes KidsTime unique is that the focus is both on parents and children, and the approach is holistic and recovery-oriented. It is also community-based and targets families likely to be invisible to local mental health services and local communities for a number of reasons, such as difficulty engaging with authority figures, poverty, discrimination, and stigma.

How has KidsTime impacted your professional practice?

KidsTime has definitely made me more empathetic and made me reflect more on stereotypical ideas, such as that parents with severe and enduring mental health difficulties cannot be good enough parents or that children of such parents cannot go on and have successful and fulfilling lives. It also made me realise how many barriers those families have to overcome to experience the type of stability and quality of life most of us take for granted. It made me more humble and, I think, a better person and therapist. I loved the experience of contributing at KidsTime.

For more than 10 years, Our Time has been improving our shared understanding of the impact of parental mental illness on children, and developing innovative ways of providing support, including through our unique, family-centred workshop model KidsTime.

We know that the impact of the poor mental health of a parent can be serious and long-lasting, but that relatively small interventions can make a big difference.

Our family workshops take place around the UK, supported by local authorities, NHS bodies, and charities. But we want to do more. You can support us by making a donation, or partnering with us.