Working on the interface: identifying professional responses to families with mental health and child-care needs

The gaps between mental health and child-care services constitute a recognised barrier to providing effective services to families where parents have mental health problems. Recent guidance exhorts professionals to coordinate and collaborate more consistently in this area of work. The present study aimed to identify the barriers to inter-professional collaboration through a survey of 500 health and social care professionals. The views of 11 mothers with severe mental health problems whose children had been subject to a child protection case conference were also interrogated through two sets of interviews. The study found that communication problems were identified more frequently between child care workers and adult psychiatrists than between other groups. Communication between general practitioners and child-care workers was also more likely to be described as problematic. While there was some support amongst practitioners for child-care workers to assume a coordinating or lead role in such cases, this support was not overwhelming, and reflected professional interests and alliances. The mothers themselves valued support from professionals whom they felt were 'there for them' and whom they could trust. There was evidence from the responses of child-care social workers that they lacked the capacity to fill this role in relation to parents and their statutory child-care responsibilities may make it particularly difficult for them to do so. The authors recommend that a dyad of workers from the child-care and community mental health services should share the coordinating key worker role in such cases.     

Meeting Children's Mental and Physical Health Needs in Child Welfare: The Importance of Caregivers

Caregivers in the child welfare system are an important element in ensuring that mental and pediatric health services for their children are utilized appropriately. The high prevalence of mental and physical health problems of children in the child welfare system along with the inadequate utilization of health services make the role of caregivers essential for improving health outcomes. This article explores the barriers to meeting the health needs of this vulnerable population of children and how different types of caregivers (unrelated foster, kinship foster, and birth parents) utilize mental and pediatric health services. Child welfare caseworkers need to increase their communication with caregivers, assess adherence to health care recommendations, and help alleviate barriers to care.     

柳州市基层医疗卫生机构儿童保健服务能力调查

目的:了解柳州市基层医疗卫生机构儿童保健服务能力现状,为相关部门制定政策提供参考依据。方法:采用普查的方式调查柳州市123家基层医疗卫生机构的辖区基本情况、人员及设施设备投入和服务开展情况。结果:123家基层医疗卫生机构中,每万常住人口拥有基层医疗卫生机构儿童保健医生0.32名、注册护士0.25名,每平方公里儿童保健医生0.0070名、注册护士0.0055名。39.84%的机构无执业(助理)医师,32.52%的机构近5年有儿童保健人员到上级医院进修。儿童保健门诊用房面积达到自治区要求的机构不足40%;视力检查、听力筛查、心理行为发育评估和膳食营养分析工具配置率分别为89.43%、36.59%、22.76%和9.76%。开展的7项儿童保健服务中,心理行为发育测验(24.39%)、耳及听力保健服务(74.80%)开展比例低,其他5项均超过90%。城乡机构间儿童保健服务人员、设施设备投入和服务开展情况存在差异,贫困县情况更严峻。结论:柳州市基层医疗卫生机构儿童保健服务能力与国家标准相比,还存在一定差距。政府有必要合理配置医疗资源,加强儿童保健人员的培养,规范儿童保健门诊建设,全面提高基层医疗卫生机构儿童保健服务能力。     

Unmet Need and Problems Accessing Specialty Medical and Related Services Among Children with Special Health Care Needs

OBJECTIVES: To extend what is known about parent reports of their child's need for specialty medical and related services, unmet need, and specific types of access problems among children with special health care needs (CSHCN). METHODS: Using data from a 1998-1999 20-state survey of families of CSHCN, we examined differences in parent report of need for services by child characteristics, investigated parent report of unmet need and access problems by service area and number of services needed, and estimated the likelihood of four access problems and unmet need by child, family, and health insurance characteristics. RESULTS: Overall, the sample children had numerous service needs, although the prevalence of need varied by service type and child characteristics. Reports of unmet need were greater for older children and for children with multiple service needs, unstable health care needs or a behavioral health condition, parents who were in poor health or had more than a high school education, and families whose insurance coverage was inconsistent or lacked a secondary plan. Reports of access problems were greatest for mental health and home health services. The two most prevalent access problems were finding a skilled provider and getting enough visits. CONCLUSIONS: The results underscore the importance of finding new ways to link children with behavioral health problems to mental health services, implementing coordinated care and the other core dimensions of the medical home concept, increasing the number of specialty pediatricians and home health providers, and expanding coverage for a wider range of mental health services.     

Care managers in rural Japan: Challenges to interprofessional collaboration

Effective interprofessional collaboration for care managers is vital for the care of older people. This study’s aim was to inquire into the obstacles to interprofessional collaboration faced by care managers in rural areas of Japan. Forty-six care managers participated in group discussions and semi-structured interviews, and the qualitative data were analyzed using thematic analysis. Five themes related to obstacles emerged from the analysis regarding relationships with physicians, professional competency, relationships among other professionals, environmental constraints, and relationships with nonprofessionals. Other professionals’ unfamiliarity with the care manager’s role and a lack of mutual understanding, boundaries, and information sharing among medical professionals were also cited as issues.     

Care for Child Development: an intervention in support of responsive caregiving and early child development

Background

An estimated 43% of children younger than 5 years of age are at elevated risk of failing to achieve their human potential. In response, the World Health Organization and UNICEF developed Care for Child Development (CCD), based on the science of child development, to improve sensitive and responsive caregiving and promote the psychosocial development of young children.

Methods

In 2015, the World Health Organization and UNICEF identified sites where CCD has been implemented and sustained. The sites were surveyed, and responses were followed up by phone interviews. Project reports provided information on additional sites, and a review of published studies was undertaken to document the effectiveness of CCD for improving child and family outcomes, as well as its feasibility for implementation in resource‐constrained communities.

Results

The inventory found that CCD had been integrated into existing services in diverse sectors in 19 countries and 23 sites, including child survival, health, nutrition, infant day care, early education, family and child protection and services for children with disabilities. Published and unpublished evaluations have found that CCD interventions can improve child development, growth and health, as well as responsive caregiving. It has also been reported to reduce maternal depression, a known risk factor for poor pregnancy outcomes and poor child health, growth and development. Although CCD has expanded beyond initial implementation sites, only three countries reported having national policy support for integrating CCD into health or other services.

Conclusions

Strong interest exists in many countries to move beyond child survival to protect and support optimal child development. The United Nations Sustainable Development Goals depend on children realizing their potential to build healthy and emotionally, cognitively and socially competent future generations. More studies are needed to guide the integration of the CCD approach under different conditions. Nevertheless, the time is right to provide for the scale‐up of CCD as part of services for families and children.     

北京流动人口妇幼保健现况研究

目的 了解北京流动人口妇女儿童对医疗保健服务的利用，以及流八城市的相关部门对流动人口的管理和提供服务的现状．方法 采用定性和定量方法收集资料，应用SPSS统计软件对数据进行描述性统计和统计推断。结果 被调查的539名育龄妇女．平均年龄29．6岁，90．9％已婚，其孕期早检率为43．7％、5次及以上产前检查率为37．6％，选择回户籍地分娩的妇女住院分娩率（67．5％）高于留在北京分娩的妇女的住院分娩率（37．6％）。初中及以上文化水平妇女的住院分娩率（63．8％）高于初中以下者的住院分娩率（46．4％）。定性调查发现。流八地医疗保健机构、公安、街道等部门的人员和经费是按户籍人口进行配置的．因此这些部门在对流动人口进行管理和服务时，面临人员和经费严重不足的问题。提供妇幼保健的医疗单位的现有服务模式、收费标准等影响流动人口妇女孕期保健服务的利用。结论流动人口妇女孕产期医疗保健服务利用率低下。建议政府在为医疗保健部门人员经费配置时考虑流动人口数量；另外，提供妇幼保健服务的医疗保健机构需加强多部门合作，改变现有服务模式、提供适宜流动人口的医疗保健服务。     

Implementing a national approach to universal child and family health services in Australia: professionals' views of the challenges and opportunities

Australia has a well‐accepted system of universal child and family health (CFH) services. However, government reports and research indicate that these services vary across states and territories, and many children and families do not receive these services. The aim of this paper was to explore professionals' perceptions of the challenges and opportunities in implementing a national approach to universal CFH services across Australia. Qualitative data were collected between July 2010 and April 2011 in the first phase of a three‐phase study designed to investigate the feasibility of implementing a national approach to CFH services in Australia. In total, 161 professionals participated in phase 1 consultations conducted either as discussion groups, teleconferences or through email conversation. Participants came from all Australian states and territories and included 60 CFH nurses, 45 midwives, 15 general practitioners (GPs), 12 practice nurses, 14 allied health professionals, 7 early childhood education specialists, 6 staff from non‐government organisations and 2 Australian government policy advisors. Data were analysed thematically. Participants supported the concept of a universal CFH service, but identified implementation barriers. Key challenges included the absence of a minimum data set and lack of aggregated national data to assist planning and determine outcomes; an inconsistent approach to transfer of information about mothers and newborns from maternity services to CFH nursing services or GPs; poor communication across disciplines and services; issues of access and equity of service delivery; workforce limitations and tensions around role boundaries. Directions for change were identified, including improved electronic data collection and communication systems, reporting of service delivery and outcomes between states and territories, professional collaboration, service co‐location and interprofessional learning and development.     

Australian parents’ use of universal child and family health services: A consumer survey

This study aimed to explore Australian parents’ use of universally available well‐child health services. It used an online survey of 719 parents of children aged from birth to 5 years in all states and territories to examine patterns of service use and consumer preferences. In Australia, several health professional groups provide advice to pregnant women, infants, children, and parents, offering health promotion, developmental screening, parenting support, and referral to specialist health services if required. The survey examined parents’ use of different child and family health providers, and their preferences for support with several common parenting issues. The study indicated that families with young children obtain primary healthcare from a range of service providers, often more than one, depending on children's ages and needs. Parents frequently visit general practitioners for immunisation and medical concerns. They attend dedicated child and family health nurses for parenting advice and well‐child checks and prefer them as an information source for many health issues. However, a substantial proportion of parents (44.1%) do not currently visit a child and family health nurse, often because they not only do not perceive a need but also sometimes because these services are unknown, inaccessible, or considered unsuitable. They may seek advice from less qualified sources. There is potential for increased collaboration between child and family health providers to ensure effective resource use and consistency of parenting information and advice. Nursing services may need to address accessibility and appropriateness of care.     

Dilemmas in Working in Partnership with the Parents and Relatives of Children Involved in Child Protection Planning

This paper considers the currency of the word “partnership” in child protection as it relates to the parents and other relatives of children subject to child protection investigations orprocedures. Parents, it is suggested, are often effectively ignored, or worse, deliberately excluded, once child protection concerns are being addressed. To ignore, however, the families that children were either born to or live with when efforts are made to protect them is, it is suggested, to de-contextualise their lives. Ultimately indeed it may be to place them at greater peril than exists as the consequences of any abuse. The basis for professional power in child protection is analysed along the dimensions of legal mandate and statutory role, gatekeeping functions and the organisational and professional context in which it operates. Seligman's theory of learned helplessness is employed as a conceptual framework in which to understand the processes by which birth parents and other relatives are likely to become increasingly ineffectual, once child protection procedures are invoked, in participating in a partnership with professionals to promote the best interests of their children. The paper concludes in examining what Sir Henry Maine first described as the move from 'status' to 'contract' in modern liberal democracies, a process whereby the regulatory functions of traditional kinship systems increasingly have been eroded by the State. It is suggested that only those models of child protection which can effectively begin to reverse this trend are likely to lead to effective partnerships between parents and birth relatives of children who are seen to be at risk, and the various professionals concerned to protect them. The paper concludes in suggesting that good intentions on the part of professionals are necessary but insufficient requirements for partnership; partnership can only effectively be achieved, it is suggested, through a fundamental reform of the legal framework.-     

Applying Ideas from Learning and Teaching in Higher Education to Develop Professional Identity: The Case of the M.Sc. in Advanced Residential Child Care

Residential child care in Scotland is located, professionally, within social work. However, the very specific expertise required to work in the field is rarely accommodated in social work training or within wider social work discourses. The literature on learning and teaching in higher education helps illuminate some of the differences between the two disciplines. Within this literature, expertise is located in the practice experience of those who work in a particular field. Accordingly, the role of the M.Sc. could not be, merely, to transmit existing “formal” knowledge. Rather, it needed to contest much of this as that formal knowledge had not served residential child care well. It had to draw out the situated knowledge of students on the course and to synthesise this with understandings from the child and youth care tradition so that the course might begin to generate a discourse for residential child care that reflected and resonated with the experiences of practitioners.     

Mental Health Problems among Child Welfare Clients Living at Home

The great majority of children receiving intervention from child welfare and protection services (CWS) in Norway live at home. The purpose of this study was to assess mental health problems among these children. Data stem from a population-based study, the Bergen child study, conducted in 2006. Of a sample consisting of 4,162 children in the fifth to seventh grades, 82 children were CWS clients who lived at home. Compared with their peers, the CWS children had significantly higher scores on emotional problems, hyperactivity, conduct problems, peer problems, and total difficulties (child and parent reports on the Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire). The relationship between being a CWS client and total difficulties remained significant when socio-demographic variables were controlled for. Even though the results indicate that child welfare clients have more contact with child and adolescent mental health service than earlier assumed, the results emphasise the need for strong collaboration between CWS and mental health services and the need for CWS to include other types of interventions in addition to financial support.     

Telepsychiatry Consultation for Primary Care Treatment of Children and Adolescents Receiving Child Protective Services in Chile: Mixed Methods Feasibility Study

BackgroundChildren and adolescents living under the supervision of child protective services have complex mental health care needs. The scarcity and uneven distribution of specialized mental health teams in Chile may limit the provision and quality of care for this vulnerable population. Telepsychiatry can address such health inequities.ObjectiveThe objective of this study was to evaluate the feasibility of a telepsychiatry consultation program for primary health care (PHC) treatment of children and adolescents living under the supervision of child protective services.MethodsWe developed a telepsychiatry consultation program for two rural PHC clinics located in central Chile (Valparaíso Region) and evaluated its implementation using a mixed methods study design. The program consisted of videoconferencing mental health consultation sessions scheduled twice per month (each 90 minutes long), over a 6-month period, delivered by child and adolescent psychiatrists based in Santiago, Chile. We described the number of mental health consultation sessions, participant characteristics, perceived usefulness and acceptability, and experiences with the telepsychiatry consultation program.ResultsDuring the 6-month study period, 15 videoconferencing mental health consultation sessions were held. The telepsychiatry consultation program assisted PHC clinicians in assigning the most adequate diagnoses and making treatment decisions on pharmacotherapy and/or psychotherapy of 11 minors with complex care needs. The intervention was perceived to be useful by PHC clinicians for improving the resolution capacity in the treatments of this patient population. Limitations such as connectivity issues were resolved in most sessions.ConclusionsThe telepsychiatry consultation program was feasible and potentially useful to support PHC clinicians in the management of institutionalized children and adolescents with complex psychosocial care needs living in a poorly resourced setting. A larger scale trial should assess clinical outcomes in the patient population. Regulations and resources for this service model are needed to facilitate sustainability and large-scale implementation.     

Child Sexual Abuse: Comprehensive Assessment In the Pediatric Health Care Setting

Cases of child sexual abuse are being identified with increasing frequency in pediatric health care settings Medical practitioners, however, often report being unprepared to offer the psychological and protective service assessments these cases require in addition to medical evaluation and treatment An interdisciplinary model for sexual abuse assessments is described Three components--emergence response consultative services, and a specialty clinic--are outlined Special problems which arise in the assessment of sexual abuse in the health care setting are discussed These revolve the role of medical evidence, stereotyping of sexual abuse victims, and impediments to child protection The implications of the increasing demand for sexual abuse services for the training of new professionals are considered.     

Informal caregivers’ views on the division of responsibilities between themselves and professionals: A scoping review

This scoping review focuses on the views of informal caregivers regarding the division of care responsibilities between citizens, governments and professionals and the question of to what extent professionals take these views into account during collaboration with them. In Europe, the normative discourse on informal care has changed. Retreating governments and decreasing residential care increase the need to enhance the collaboration between informal caregivers and professionals. Professionals are assumed to adequately address the needs and wishes of informal caregivers, but little is known about informal caregivers’ views on the division of care responsibilities. We performed a scoping review and searched for relevant studies published between 2000 and September 1, 2016 in seven databases. Thirteen papers were included, all published in Western countries. Most included papers described research with a qualitative research design. Based on the opinion of informal caregivers, we conclude that professionals do not seem to explicitly take into account the views of informal caregivers about the division of responsibilities during their collaboration with them. Roles of the informal caregivers and professionals are not always discussed and the division of responsibilities sometimes seems unclear. Acknowledging the role and expertise of informal caregivers seems to facilitate good collaboration, as well as attitudes such as professionals being open and honest, proactive and compassionate. Inflexible structures and services hinder good collaboration. Asking informal caregivers what their opinion is about the division of responsibilities could improve clarity about the care that is given by both informal caregivers and professionals and could improve their collaboration. Educational programs in social work, health and allied health professions should put more emphasis on this specific characteristic of collaboration.     

儿童保健体检中断原因调查分析

目的:了解儿童保健体检中断原因,为进一步提高儿童保健体检覆盖率提供参考。方法:对建立儿童保健手册但未能按时体检的402名儿童的看护人进行电话问卷调查,了解其体检中断原因。结果:调查儿童家庭大部分以儿童祖辈看护为主,占总数69.15%。保健意识薄弱,认为体检不重要者占48.50%。因忘记未按时体检者占22.88%。因体检不方便者占15.42%。其他原因占13.18%。结论:儿童看护人保健意识薄弱、体检间隔时间长、家长易忘记等因素是儿童保健体检中断的主要原因。提高儿童家长的保健意识,是提高儿童保健体检覆盖率的有效方式。