The offer of family-oriented support programmes in Austria is very limited, especially when the children are older than three years: „Targeted support for affected families exists only sporadically,“ says Ingrid Zechmeister-Koss of the Austrian Institute for Health Technology Assessment (AIHTA). One exception is the „Village“ project financed by the Ludwig Boltzmann Society and the Medical University of Innsbruck, in which a family-oriented support programme is implemented for families with a mentally distressed parent. As part of the project, the AIHTA analysed societal and health economic dimensions of mental illness in families. The results show the importance of preventive measures.