Family-focused practice with EASE: A practice framework for strengthening recovery when parents have mental illness.

This paper provides a framework for essential family-focused practices (EASE:Engage, Assess, Support, Educate) for clinicians to support parents with mental illness in thecontext of their family. The framework is underpinned by relational recovery as the parent/consumer’s recovery is considered within the context of their relationships, including therelationship between clinician and parent/consumer. The central aim is to strengthen nurses’ andother clinicians’ capacity to address key psychosocial needs of parents and to strengthenrelational recovery in families where parents have mental illness. The EASE framework is atheory and evidence-informed family practice approach to relational recovery within healthcareprovision. The EASE practice components are defined and illustrated with practice exemplarsthat operationalize the framework within adult service settings. Potential applications andoutcomes of using EASE are also described. The framework is intended as a practical guide forworking with parents and families in inpatient and community mental health settings andmay also be relevant for clinicians in a range of contexts including child welfare and primaryhealth care.