Activity Groups in Family-Centered Treatment

Book excerpt: Get the tools for practical family-based interventions for children or adolescents with mental illness Providing parent-child occupation-based interventions can be one of the most important therapeutic services offered to children or parents with mental illness and their families. Activity Groups in Family-Centered Treatment: Psychiatric Occupational Therapy Approaches for Parents and Children provides useful in depth how to strategies into the processes of providing family occupation-based group intervention when a child has a mental illness. Occupational therapists working with children or parents with mental illness can learn valuable practical interventions to apply in their own clinical work. Cherished activities that strengthen parent-child bonds are many times lacking in families that include a child or parent with mental illness. Activity Groups in Family-Centered Treatment describes valuable parent-child occupation-based interventions with detailed examples of how they have been provided in therapy. This text provides an overview of the literature related to providing family-based psychiatric OT treatment for children and their families, a framework for providing services, rich descriptions of a parent-child activity group, a parent-adolescent activity group, and case studies of inpatient and home-based occupation based interventions. Topics in Activity Groups in Family-Centered Treatment include: an overview of theory and research literature on the nature of the interaction between parents and children with emotional disorders detailed case studies of family challenges with mental illness a framework for parent-child activity groups a qualitative study of a parent-child activity group analysis of the barriers that can arise in a parent-child activity group clinical experiences leading a parent-adolescent activity group analysis of the influences of culture within a parent-child activity group a case study of the intervention for a depressed mother and her family issues between parents and professionals when children are psychiatrically hospitalized Activity Groups in Family-Centered Treatment provides occupational therapists and other professionals who lead parent-child groups or who work with families that include a child or parent with mental illness with integral tools to effectively treat their clients.