Main Recommendations and Implications for Policy and Practice
#01
Strengthen system coordination and consistency
- Improve joined-up working between education, health, and social care so families experience coordinated, rather than fragmented, support.
- Establish clear and transparent service pathways that are consistent across areas and easy for parent carers to navigate, including clear information about whether assessment or diagnosis are necessary to access support.
- Reduce administrative burden for parent carers by simplifying forms, sharing information across agencies, and ensuring parent carers do not need to retell (and re-live) their story repeatedly.
- Ensure service stability and flexibility – avoid frequent restructuring and allow local adaptation to meet families’ needs without rigid thresholds.
- Promote equity of access across regions so that families’ chances of getting timely support do not depend on where they live and support does not change when they move home.
Why it matters:
Predictable, coordinated systems reduce parent carer stress, build trust, and prevent families from “falling through the gaps”, leading to better outcomes.
Why it matters:
Positive, consistent relationships with informed professionals are protective for parent carers’ mental health and increase engagement with services. This in turn reduces vulnerability, making wellbeing easier to achieve.
#02
Invest in relationships and professional capability
- Prioritise relationship-based practice. Promote continuity of care and trust by minimising staff turnover, supporting effective handovers between staff to ensure service continuity, and enabling sufficient appointment time for professionals to listen and understand families’ situations.
- Provide specialist training to increase professional knowledge and confidence around SEND, parent carer mental health, and whole-family approaches.
- Promote awareness and understanding of the specific challenges faced by parent carers and the need for supportive, non-judgmental approaches.
- Increase training for health, social care, and education professionals in pathways to support and Carer’s Assessments in line with legislation and guidance.
- Adopt a partnership model that values parent carers as experts in their child’s needs and experiences.
- Communicate promptly, openly and transparently, ensuring that parent carers and children feel heard, respected, and included in decision-making.
#03
Reduce practical and emotional pressures on families
- Address financial insecurity by ensuring families have stable access to entitlements and requiring employers to provide truly flexible employment, carers’ leave, and respite options for parent carers.
- Recognise the impact of reduced capacity to work on parent carers’ wellbeing and the effects of juggling work and caring on their ability to access support.
- Acknowledge and respond to stress, stigma, and exhaustion among parent carers – offer tailored mental health support, peer networks, and signposting to trusted sources of help.
- Simplify pathways to support so parent carers do not have to “fight” or reach crisis point to get help. Create proactive, rights-based systems that reach out rather than requiring constant advocacy.
Why it matters:
Reducing financial, emotional, and bureaucratic pressure helps families focus on caring and improves outcomes for both parent carers and children.
Why it matters:
Supporting the family as a whole promotes resilience, reduces long-term service use, and leads to better outcomes for children and parent carers alike.
#04
Embed a whole-family, preventative approach
- Integrate parent carer wellbeing into child-focused services and vice versa, recognising that parent and child mental health are interdependent.
- Institute routine identification of parent carers as carers in medical records, linked to regular mental health check-ups and support.
- Clear duties to routinely offer Carer’s Assessments to parent carers in line with legislation and guidance.
- Earlier, routine identification or assessment of mental health needs at key points such as at child’s diagnosis or registration as carer.
- Provide early, tailored support for the required length of time that targets risk factors and prevents crises rather than responding after problems have escalated.
- Involve families in co-design of services to ensure interventions and systems reflect real experiences and needs and deliver the impact that is needed.
In summary
Parent carers’ mental health is shaped by both system-level factors and everyday interactions.
Supporting them effectively requires:
Supporting them effectively requires:
- stable, joined-up systems,
- skilled and compassionate professionals with sufficient time, and
- a family-centred culture that values parents’ expertise and reduces unnecessary struggle.