This study is concerned with identifying the children of a group of parents hospitalized for mental illness to determine the arrangements that were made for their care on the initiative of the family or with the help of community resources. The inference to be drawn from this study is that the combined resources of mental hospitals and community health and welfare services at present fail, for the most part, to deliver significant help to children of hospitalized parents. The families in this study ranged from those with substantial resources who were able to mobilize them adequately, to those whose resources were very limited and who were unable or ineffective in mobilizing plans for the care of the children. Yet, even among the more adequate families there was much concern with the care of the children during this crisis period. With the rapidly changing patterns of mental hospitalization, including voluntary admissions, increased use of drug therapies, and shorter hospital duration, new methods need to be designed to combine and expand hospital and community responsibility toward the children of hospitalized parents. A plan to test possible designs is in preparation in the Department of Maternal and Child Health at the Harvard School of Public Health.