Developing services for the carers of young adults with early-onset psychosis – implementing evidence-based practice on psycho-educational family intervention

This paper describes a series of practice and service development initiatives to incorporate the family-inclusive approach into the newly established Early Intervention in Psychosis Service in Berkshire, England. Following a local study on carers' experiences and needs from those who cared for a young adult with a first-episode psychosis (FEP), a series of flexible services for this group of carers has been developed incorporating the much-researched psycho-educational family interventions. The findings of our local phenomenological study on the carers for young adults with FEP clearly specified the unique needs of this group of carers and that well-established approaches in family work and carers support facilities may have to be adapted to meet such needs. This paper reports the service development process through which a series of specially designed carers' services were set up for carers caring for a young adult with FEP. These services were developed to address carers' needs for knowledge, skills and support to cope with their caring roles and situation, from the stressful beginning of a potentially long caring journey.