Why is this project needed now?
Around 800,000 children in the UK live with a parent diagnosed with bipolar disorder, and around 60% of these will experience at least one mental health issue during childhood. This may be because children of parents with bipolar disorder are likely to experience unstable parenting, as mood changes can make delivering consistent parenting difficult. Therefore, parents diagnosed with bipolar disorder often report high levels of stress and low parenting confidence, while their children’s emotional and behavioural wellbeing is also impacted.
There is currently no support available specifically for parents diagnosed with bipolar disorder. Spectrum is aiming to change this, by creating the integrated bipolar parenting intervention (IBPI)