A Glance at the Neighbours

KOPP/KOAP-Policy at the P.C. Dr. Guislain

At Vadem the so-called silent room received a child-friendly make-over. Amongst other things, a doll house , a little kitchen, a lot of toys and furniture suitable for children help children visiting their parents feel welcome. “We already received a lot of positive reactions”, says therapist Ria Schoutteet. “Residents have now a place to play together with their children, a bit away from the department. Or they can talk quietly to their partner while the children are playing. As a therapist we can keep an eye on them, through the large glass walls.”

The patient as a parent

The child-friendly room at Vadem is a very tangible result of the KOPP/KOAP-policy in the P.C. Dr. Guislain. KOPP stands for ‘Kinderen van Ouders met Psychische Problemen’ (Children from Parents with Mental Health Problems) and KOAP stands for ‘Kinderen van Ouders met een AfhankelijkheidsProbleem’ (Children from Parents with a Dependency Problem). The goal of this policy is to have more attention for the parent role of the patients and for the children. In our center KOPP/KOAP officially started in March last year. “Indeed, then we started a KOPP-reference group, in which sieges at least one reference person for each department and for the PVT”, says staff member for health policy Stefanie Everaert. “Of course, it’s not that we didn’t pay attention to children at all before that, but some departments paid more attention to them than others. Now we work out a shared vision and a larger policy for the whole center. Actually this is a movement which you observe in the sector as a whole. Government also expects that you pay attention to the parenthood of the patients.”

Prevention

According to scientific research, children of parents with mental health problems are more likely to develop mental health problems themselves. To work preventively is therefore very important. Moreover, a hospitalization is always a challenging period, also for the children involved. “To inform them well and help them to understand what happens is therefore very important”, says Ria, “because this way they learn to handle it. But not everybody shares this opinion. Sometimes people  literally say ‘Children don’t belong here, they must not see this’, often out of a reflex to protect them. But they see, hear, know and feel a lot more than we think.” Therefore the P.C. Dr. Guislain sees it as a task of the caregivers to enter into dialogue with patients about their parenthood and their children. The reference persons follow training sessions preparing them to engage prevention conversations. This aims in the first place at strengthening the parents in their role as a parent and also at stimulating the resilience of the children.

In practice…

In the patient’s record parenthood has also its place. “ The ‘procedure project plan’ requires that from the outset, someone’s file should state whether a patient has children. Then it is more likely to be integrated in the treatment plan”, says Stefanie. Of course each department has its own specificity. Therefore the reference persons collaborated with the core teams and they have defined some action points related to KOPP/KOAP at their own department. “Wadis and Crisiszorg, for instance,  also want to install a place for children”, explains Stefanie. “Andiamo in turn organises group sessions where with the help of some topics patients can exchange ideas and experiences of parenthood. Fioretti focusses on brothers and sisters. That is how everybody makes it their own.” The reference persons certainly play a major part. “In fact they are the ambassadors of the KOPP-policy”, says Ria. “They promote the policy at their department and care for its turning into action. Through the reference persons the departments inspire each other to work with the topic.”