The question is – how can a broken Parent/Caregiver/Personal Support Person take care of a child/children with developmental challenges, as these children require extra support and attention?

Depression is one of the most prevalent mental health illnesses globally. Parental depression is on the increase, most especially for parents of children with developmental disabilities, compared to parents of children without disabilities. Parental depression can ‘steal’ the livelihood in all spheres of life of parents of children with developmental challenges. These parents need to be in a very good, mentally healthy state to provide the support and care needed for the children's healthy growth and development.

Following my earlier research on Policy Priorities for ageing adults with autism: Perspectives of Personal Support Persons, almost all Provinces in Canada have very excellent and appreciative support programs for children with developmental challenges. One critically and equally important support service which is conspicuously missing is an intentionally desired psychological well-being support program for the Parents/Caregivers/Personal Support Persons of these children. Available and current literature strongly suggest that the absence of any singular program to ensure that the Parents/Caregivers/Personal Support Persons of these children are sound and mentally healthy to shoulder the frustrations, stress, loss of self, and resource burden that they experience on daily basis to care and support their children with developmental challenges can result in long term psychological health distress, which could lead to an emerging public health concern.
This requires urgent critical attention for policy consideration because the fact is that even when Parents/Caregivers/Personal Support Persons seem to have all the resources that the child will need, but lack a psychological balance can be more devastating to the child than the other way round. One enormous negative impact of parental depression is the loss of natural bonding between the child and the parents, which could disrupt desired family functions. And when these two key desired spaces are missing, all other resource investments cannot yield the desired outcomes for the child.

Key Words – Psychological Well-being, Mental Health, Depression, Parents, Children with Developmental Challenges

Key Messages
1. Caring for a child with a developmental challenge has a higher probability of affecting parents' psychological health.
2. Parents of children with developmental challenges are at a higher risk of suffering from anxiety and depression and may experience an increased risk of psychological health problems due to several related stressors, such as desired extra caregiver demands, financial and resource demands, loss of personal livelihood, including career and personal purpose, among others.
3. And if parental depression or psychological health-related problems are not recognized and/or treated promptly, it would have a devastating impact on the natural bonding between parents and the child, which would disrupt the family functions, hence leaving the child in the worst state despite available resources.
4. Parents of children with developmental challenges therefore equally need specialized designed psychological health programs to support their well-being, as parenting is a lifetime journey.

With the above picture depicting the daily traumatizing stress for a parent of a child with developmental challenges, it is proposed that there should be intentional specialized psychological health programs to support the mental well-being of these Parents/Caregivers/Personal Support Persons.

Conclusion
Helping Parents/Caregivers/Personal Support Persons feel more capable and effective in caring for their child with special needs may reduce the risk of depression. A specialized psychological health program for Parents/Caregivers/Personal Support Persons of children with developmental challenges would help them manage their own stress and feelings of isolation, thereby sustaining their psychological well-being to ensure smooth and desired parenting and caregiving to their children and family.

Conflict of Interest
The author declares that there was no conflict of interest in any way in writing this article, and hereby gives consent for publication of this article.

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