Participants in the study who are parents and who suffer from various psychiatric disorders, reveal that they feel social workers and others trivialize and misunderstand their illnesses and the effect on their children. This is summarized best in a quote from one parent, "Like I've got a [Child Protection social] worker involved with me and uh - and we all had a meeting at the school. But they just don't understand it. I'm trying. But sometimes I just can't [do what they are expecting me to do because of my illness]." Another participant speaks about the aggressive and physically abusive actions that her child has witnessed and the effects that it had on him, "Like he's uh - he's uh…seen like with his father…me being pushed away all the time…And - and he's seen that. He's grown up with that. That - that really done something to [his mental health]."

These participants also add that they do not feel that they are treated respectfully by social workers. They cite examples of trying to contact them and finding the social workers have been reassigned to other cases and nobody had made any effort to inform them of the change. Natalie mentions that she had six different social workers in four years and partly because of all of these changes and constantly having to "tell [her] story", she finds it difficult to rely on people in positions of authority.

Beth discloses that she feels her social worker does not understand her complicated life, nor realize what life is like for her raising three children in poverty. She comments:

I haven't been feeling good. I've been nursing a headache for over a week…Okay…[my son] was in the hospital on Monday and had surgery done. Okay, by the time I got home with him…You know…I was tired…Like I'm up like I said at 4:30, I go do the papers, I get the kids off to school…Well sometimes I don't feel like cleaning the house…Instead [the social worker should be] finding out, you know, what the main cause of…why the house looks like this.