A Description and Evaluation of a Community Child Mental Health Service

Abstract

A community-based child mental health service was established for families of preschool children with emotional and behavioural problems in the children, psychosocial problems in the family or parenting difficulties. The intervention was home-based and conducted by health visitors and paediatric community medical officers trained in parent counselling, parenting issues and child behavioural management. The approach was based upon frameworks derived from counselling theory, with the intervention dependent upon the development of a trusting and respectful partnership with the parents. The aims were to promote and support the parents' own exploration of the identified problems, and to help them establish clear aims and effective problem management strategies. Ongoing supervision was provided by a clinical psychologist. The evidence indicated that the training course was acceptable to non-mental health professionals and effective in preparing them to work with psychosocial problems. The service was a feasible option for work at the community level; it was acceptable to both referrers and parents and beneficial for families living in a very deprived inner-city community.

Developing pathways to assist parents to exit the child protection system in Australia

“…Studies examining the FP training program have demonstrated its effectiveness in improving practitioner knowledge, skills and qualities (Davis et al, 1997;Papadopoulou et al, 2005). Establishing a working relationship of this nature may help to facilitate change in and by itself but this is unlikely when families face complex difficulties with few immediate resources.…”

Understanding alliances. How can research inform user‐friendly practice?

“…However, one way of dealing with waiting lists in one service is to set up a project in another. Davis et al (1997) and Davis and Spurr (1998) studied the effectiveness of a consultation service for parents of children with behaviour problems, which had been set up because of a long waiting list to see clinic-based specialists. They found that, after an average of six sessions in the home, the mothers had developed greater self-confidence through…”

Working in partnership: the development of a home visiting service for vulnerable families

“…Later research showed 'The more deprived and initially less well-supported families derived the greatest benefits' the programme to be effective with parents of preschool children with behaviour problems in reducing the severity of the identified problems, increasing parental self-esteem, decreasing levels of parental stress and emotional difficulties, improving positive parental constructions of their children and improving the home environment and child behavioural problems (Davis and Spurr, 1998). There was also evidence to show that the Parent Adviser Programme was both acceptable to non-mental health professionals, including health visitors, and effective in preparing them to work with a range of psychosocial problems (Davis et al, 1997).…”

“…The programme is based on the assumption that parents and children are actively engaged in making sense of their world by anticipating events, and that they do so by developing a unique and complex system of constructs. Change and adaptation, especially in the face of problems, requires the exploration and modification of these constructions, and particularly those relating to their perceptions of themselves, their partners, their children and all other major figures in their lives, including those who offer help (Davis et al, 1997). It is also assumed that the process of helping involves a number of stages, the first and most important of which is the development by the helper of an appropriate relationship with the parents.…”