Screening to Identify Parents in Need of Mental Health Support: A Feasibility Study in Child Welfare Services

The main aim of this study is to evaluate the feasibility, preliminary effects and experiences of the Collaboration-Screening-Referral approach (in Swedish: Samverkan-Screening-Hänvisning - SSH) when used with parents referred to the Swedish child welfare services. The SSH is an approach to screen parents for symptoms of mental illness using structured questionnaires, establish intra-agency collaboration, and refer to mental health services. Additionally, to increase social workers and competence in assessing and handling mental illness through receiving training in the SSH and administering the screening to parents. The main questions the project aims to answer are: * Are parents engaged with child welfare services willing to undergo screening for symptoms of depression and anxiety? * How have the implementation of the SSH proceeded and to what degree is it sustained? * How do parents and social workers experience the SSH? * Do social workers' behaviors, knowledge and competence relevant to supporting parents with mental illness increase when implementing the SSH? Social workers answer questions before and after their training and after 6 and 12 months. Additionally, social workers and parents will be interviewed. Qualitative and quantitative within-group analyses will be conducted to examine experiences and preliminary effects of the SSH.

SOCIAL WORKERS: Inclusion Criteria: * Working at the participating units. Exclusion Criteria: * None. PARENTS: Inclusion Criteria: * A parental role in relation to a child 0-17 years old (the participant does need not be a guardian or biological parent, can also be, for example, a partner to a parent). * A child welfare report has been filed for the child or the parent has reached out to the CWS themselves. Exclusion Criteria: * None.