This briefing focuses on one of those issues, poor parental mental health. Without adequate supports, children living in households experiencing poor parental mental health are at greater risk of developing their own mental health problems, disengaging from school, struggling to build relationships and generally experiencing worse wellbeing and future opportunities. If we want to improve children and young people’s mental health across the country, a firm commitment made under this new Government, addressing the negative impact of parental mental health must be a priority. Whole family supports mitigate and reduce the potential harm and negative impacts on children. Enhancing and making them more readily available should be a first step, because childhood lasts a lifetime. 

In developing this report, we commissioned Amarach Research to carry out a nationally representative survey of 390 parents across the country. This was carried out in March 2025. Additionally, we carried out 10 detailed one to one interviews with parents facing mental health issues supported in Barnardos services between November 2024 and February 2025. Finally, we spoke to staff across our services to get their views on parental mental health and wellbeing issues facing the families we support.

P.11 Additional adversities - It is important that parental mental health is not viewed in isolation to other parental adversities, challenges and disadvantages. Parents are often dealing with considerable complexities and facing numerous additional challenges and adversities simultaneously to their parental mental health issues. These additional adversities are often the cause of or certainly compounded their mental health and mental wellbeing. For example, the survey results found that twice as many parents who reported being affected by mental health difficulties said they either occasionally or frequently experienced challenges with substance issues they felt difficult to manage compared to parents who did not have mental health difficulties (23% compared to 9%). For many parents, the combination of their mental health issues alongside additional adversities mean that their children are more likely to be negatively affected and therefore are in greater need for targeted support. For example, 50% more parents with poor mental health who had also separated from their child’s other parent said their mental health significantly impacted their children compared to those who had not separated (25% compared to 16%).