Are you ready for the Mental Health Act amendment?

What health and social care professionals need to know and do

6 February 2026

Dympna Cunnane, Our Time Charity

The recent amendment to the Mental Health Act (NC27) marks a significant shift in how services must respond when a parent is detained under the Mental Health Act. For the first time, the law explicitly recognises the needs of children and young people whose parents experience serious mental illness. For professionals across health, social care, education and voluntary services, this raises an urgent question: are we ready to put this into practice?

For over 20 years, Our Time Charity – who recently partnered with the Tavistock and Portman to create training in this area – has listened to children whose parents live with mental illness. Both organisations have heard thousands of accounts from young people whose lives were profoundly affected when a parent was admitted to hospital during a mental health crisis. Again and again, the story is the same. Children witness their parent’s deterioration over weeks or months, often taking on caring responsibilities far beyond their years. Yet when hospital admission finally occurs, it is rare for anyone to take the time to speak to them to help them understand what this means. No one explains what is happening, where their parent has gone, or what will happen next. Very often when the parent is discharged, they return home with no prior notice and no information about their medication, and little or no information or support for them. This is traumatic and has far reaching impacts.

Children and young people return to school carrying fear, confusion and shame. Stigma keeps them silent, and even if they find the courage to speak, support is rarely available and nobody feels equipped to deal with it – it’s too complicated and scary. What the children and young people say they need is not always specialist intervention, but informed, compassionate professionals who understand their situation and know how to respond. As one young person so aptly put it, “I want somebody to notice and care”.

This is why the amendment matters. The UK government has confirmed that the statutory Code of Practice will now require professionals to identify children when a parent is detained, share information about available support and make appropriate referrals, including young carers’ assessments where needed. Advance Choice Documents will also include questions about children and caring responsibilities. This represents real progress, but legislation alone will not change practice and improve outcomes for children whose parent has a mental illness.

Implementation is the challenge. Professionals need confidence, clarity and skills to translate these new duties into meaningful support for families. Without training, there is a risk that these requirements become a tick-box exercise rather than a child-centred response. Juliet’s story illustrates what is at stake. When Juliet’s mother was first hospitalised, no professional spoke to her. As a seven-year-old, she was left confused and frightened, a pattern that continued throughout her childhood. Looking back, she reflects that a simple conversation – an explanation, a check-in, recognition of her experience – could have made a profound difference.

Training to support professionals

The self-study course, developed in partnership between Our Time and the Tavistock and Portman, draws on evidence, lived experience, and proven models such as KidsTime Workshops, to bridge the gap between policy and practice. It will give professionals the grounding, skills and confidence to support children and young people whose parent has a mental illness.

This amendment is a milestone, but it is also a call to action. This course will help you to understand the specific needs of this group and offers you some tools and insights to help you in your professional role and make sure that children of parents with mental illness are no longer invisible, but recognised, supported, and safeguarded at one of the most vulnerable moments of their lives.