Clinician experiences of “Let’s Talk about Children” training and implementation to support families affected by parental mental illness

Let’s Talk about Children (LTC) is a structured intervention which aims to improve outcomes for children of parents with a mental illness. An enhanced form of training has been developed to support clinician uptake of this intervention. The purpose of this paper is to explore clinicians’ experiences of this form of training and of implementing LTC.

A qualitative research design was adopted, underpinned by social constructionism. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with adult community mental health clinicians (n=10) and were audio-recorded. The interview data were transcribed verbatim, coded and thematically analysed.

Participants experienced both the training and the LTC intervention as a step in the right direction, with the enhanced training seen as superior to standard online modules, but not sufficient for implementation in practice. Additional training support, partnership working with families and service partners and overcoming challenges by adapting the model are some strategies that may support routine implementation of LTC.

This study is the first to explore clinician experiences of this enhanced face-to-face training format followed by the implementation of LTC in an Australian context. Findings suggest strategies for enhancing clinician skills and confidence, improving fidelity to the model and identifying success factors for services looking to implement LTC. The potential value of face-to-face over online training and common barriers to implementation at an organisational level are identified and require further exploration in future studies.