Mother love

Mental health service users who want children pose a particular challenge for health and social care staff in the community who have to weigh the potential risk to the child against the rights of the client. Social work trainer Hazel Anne Lewis explains that social workers in mental health teams and those in children and families teams may view the situation differently. Another problem is that health professionals who have worked in the old psychiatric institutions may use the medical model to determine a person's fitness to become a parent and fail to take social issues into account.