Parents that suffer from a serious mental illness are significantly more likely to have contact with child protective services and lose custody over their children, according to research published this month.
The research does not indicate that parents with a serious mental illness have higher rates of abuse or neglect, nor that custody loss is due to the mental illness alone. However, the results do indicate that parents with serious mental illness are disproportionately more likely to have interactions with child protective services and to endure stress and other devastating psychological impacts as a consequence of losing custody over their children.
Published online in Psychiatric Services, Katy Kaplan, PhD, and colleagues from Temple University utilized data from a national survey that assesses a variety of health factors, including serious mental illness, parenting status, child protective services contacts and the nature of such contacts. The results are the first comparable national prevalence estimates of child protective services involvement. The findings also provide a stepping stone for further research into the implications of such involvement and how to prevent these events.
Contemporary results
Individuals with serious mental illness have parenting rates similar to those who do not suffer from a mental illness, according to the results. However, parents with a serious mental illness were eight times more likely to have contact with child protective services and 26 times more likely to have the court involvement result in out-of-home placement of the child.
Implications of findings
The authors argue that these results are indicative of the bias and discrimination faced by parents with disabilities, including serious mental illness. "Federal and state statutes continue to limit parental rights by either allowing a mental illness as grounds to terminate parental rights in 36 states or expediting the process to terminate parental rights," the authors write. "Some states allow for a mental illness as grounds to not provide reasonable efforts to reunify a family."
Discrimination towards individuals with disabilities has been well documented, and child protective services, courts and clinicians may have bias when making parental competency decisions. Addressing the biases of child protective services and others involved in these decisions through training and education is essential to prevent illegitimate decisions.
However, untreated severe mental illness can lead to symptomatic behavior that may jeopardize an individual's ability to take care of a child. Therefore, a lack of an adequate mental health treatment system that takes care of those with the most severe psychiatric diseases also contributes to these findings.
An adequate treatment system for individuals with serious mental illness is needed, including adapting mental health services to address the parenting role among individuals with serious mental illness, the authors write. The consequences of non-treatment are far too great.
Elizabeth Sinclair
Director of Research
Treatment Advocacy Center
References:
- Kaplan, K. et al. (2019, January). Child protective services disparities and serious mental illness: Results from a national survey. Psychiatric Services.