Parenting Mental Health (PMH) is a global community and charity that supports, educates and empowers parents of children with poor mental health. We are member led, volunteer-run and powered by lived experience.

PMH started in September 2016 after Suzanne Alderson had found herself facing the most challenging experience of her life the year before - parenting her 14 year old daughter who was depressed and subsequently suicidal. Suzanne and her family were thrown into a dark, frightening, and isolating time with no experience or support. All of the services were rightly focused on her daughter, but Suzanne knew that as a parent she had a vital part to play in guiding her daughter and her family through this challenging experience. Sitting on suicide watch in the middle of the night, she realised that even though she felt isolated, she could not be alone and decided that once her daughter was on the road to recovery, she would make it her mission to ensure no other parent felt as isolated, ill-equipped or frightened as she did.

Since then, the Facebook community and charity has grown and supports parents around the world across its digital channels and programs. Parenting Mental Health now empowers, educates, and supports tens of thousands of parents to successfully navigate each stage of their child's mental illness, and to become stronger and more resilient people, parents and families.

We know from lived experience and research that when parents change their behaviour, they offer more compassionate and connected support to their children through mental illness. Suzanne's approach of Partnering not Parenting helps parents create amazing change and deep connections in their relationships.

At Parenting Mental Health, our mission is to end generational mental illness and we believe that parents are a vital and often overlooked part in the fight against poor mental health in young people.

We know if we can support them, they can help reduce the severity and duration of many mental health conditions by changing their behaviour. They can strengthen themselves and their families. They can effect change in their own lives in many ways.

We believe in the power of the parent to help end generational mental illness and we understand the power of compassion and community to drive hope, belief and change.

Parenting Mental Health achieved charity status in February 2020 and our aim is to fund interventions such as Listening Circles, In-person groups, a telephone support line and training for parents for free. We know through our research that these impact positively on parents' mental health and their families, improving overall wellbeing by an average of 69%.

This is why YOUR support and donations are so needed and so appreciated. Parenting Mental Health is operated by a small army of dedicated and talented volunteers but we need to secure services so we can guarantee our ongoing support for families and scale our interventions. Without kind supporters like you, we cannot continue this important and pressing work.

We'd like as many people as possible to learn about the challenges of parenting a child with a mental health issue and the impact it has on families and futures. Any support you can offer is so gratefully received and you will help change outcomes for young people and families by supporting Team PMH.

Thank you.

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