Do municipalities offer help to children of parents with serious mental illness?

Children of parents with serious mental illness are considered to be at risk of developing mental illness themselves. Reorganization of the mental health care system has resulted in increased numbers of persons with serious mental illness residing in their home communities, and children have become more directly involved with their parents' illness. A questionnaire was distributed to all of the municipalities in the Mid-Norway health region and to the six city districts in Trondheim in order to determine the number of children of parents with serious mental illness and the health services they routinely receive. 59 (64%) of the 92 questionnaires sent out were returned. 247 children were living with a serious mentally ill parent; six with a mentally ill single father, 102 with a mentally ill single mother. Of the 54 municipalities, six had standard routines for provision of care to the children. Municipalities with such routines attributed this to effective cooperation between professional groups or the special involvement of particular individuals. The study indicates that it is largely a matter of chance whether children do or do not receive help from the communities they live in.