Overview

This in-depth exploration uses individual portraits to show what parents face as they love and care for their mentally ill children and cope with how the mental health system has failed them. The Surgeon General has identified children's mental illness as a national problem that creates a burden of suffering so serious as to be considered a health crisis. Yet, what it means to be the parent of a mentally ill child has not been adequately considered—until now. Parenting Mentally Ill Children: Faith, Caring, Support, and Survival captures the essence of caring for these youngsters, providing resources and understanding for parents and an instructive lesson for society. Author Craig Winston LeCroy uses in-depth interviews to chronicle the experiences of parents of mentally ill children as they attempt to survive each day, obtain needed help, and reach out for support, and he lets them share their misunderstood emotions of shame, anger, fear, guilt, and powerlessness in the face of stigma from professionals, family, and friends. The book concludes with a critical appraisal of the social policies that must be implemented to help—and the reasons we should feel obligated to initiate them.

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9780313358685

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Reviews

<p> After reading the moving stories told by caretaking parents of children with severe mental illness, one is grateful for this mind-stretching survey, which condenses research in the fields of psychiatry, social work, sociology, health care, epidemiology, psychology, and social policy. . . . The book's painful narratives defy easy analogy, but readers who persist will take seriously LeCroy's argument that a tolerant, strengths-based approach combined with information and resources can help families cope and, indeed, thrive. Summing Up: Recommended. All levels/libraries. - <p>Choice

Author Information

Craig Winston LeCroy, PhD, is professor in the School of Social Work at Arizona State University, Tempe, AZ.

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