How best to work with families where infants are at risk? This is the substance of this book: to understand how to achieve improved outcomes for infants growing up in situations of risk, mainly in the area of the parents' mental health, but also in other related psychosocial circumstances that may impair parental functioning. These include migration, well known to be stressful, substance abuse, and infant hospitalisation. Throughout this book, the authors examine the effects of adverse life circumstances on infant and family and, in most cases, also describe assessments and interventions.

Author Biography

Anne Sved Williams is the Director, Perinatal and Infant Mental Health Services, Children, Youth and Women's Health Services, South Australia and Clinical Senior Lecturer in Psychiatry, University of Adelaide. Vicki Cowling, OAM, is an advocate for children of parents with a mental illness and their families, and has contributed to research, service development, professional education, and publications including editing two books concerning children of parents with mental illness (1999, 2004).