‘What Do I Have to Come Here for, I’m Not Mad?’ Children’s Perceptions of a Child Guidance Clinic

Abstract

A B S T R A C T Children's views as service users are being increasingly sought and valued. A pictorial critical incident technique was developed to gain insights into the perceptions and experiences of children and young people (n = 30, ages 5-15 years) attending a child and adolescent outpatient mental health service for the first time. The methodology proved effective in eliciting children's views, both positive and negative. Findings show age differences in clients' anxieties about attending. The degree to which children and young people felt involved in the process of assessment also varied with age. In general, children and young people felt more positive when leaving the clinic compared with when they first arrived. Salient aspects of the initial visit emerged which may not have been tapped using a questionnaire or rating scale. Findings are discussed in the context of service delivery issues and the development of child-focused preparatory information. K E Y W O R D S child guidance, children's perceptions, critical incident technique

Adolescents' and parents' views of Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services (CAMHS) in Ireland

“…Coping with a child who has mental health difficulties affects parental well-being and the family dynamic (Harden 2005, Oruche et al 2012) so parental psycho-educational support (requested by the study parents) is crucial. Information should be provided in different formats to prepare, assist involvement and reduce misunderstandings and anxiety (Ross & Egan 2004). The significant impact of stigma on adolescents and parents, alongside the impact of the adolescents' mental health difficulties, indicates that information, multi-agency communication and social support are essential (O'Reilly et al 2013).…”

Evaluating Clinical Practice: Using Play-based Techniques to Elicit Children's Views of Therapy

“…C H I L D R E N ' S V I E W S O F the mental health services they receive are beginning to be investigated in the UK. This is partly due to the Children's National Service Framework (Department of Health [DoH], 2003) requiring a child-centred orientation for children's services delivered by the National Health Service (Day, Carey, & Surgenor, 2006;Ross & Egan, 2004). A further reason is due to increased societal awareness of children's right to have their views directly ascertained.…”

“…Examples from the existing research literature include: Noon (2000) on child protection case conferences; Bond (1995) on family centres; Sandbaek (1999) on child welfare and protection services; Strickland- Clark, Campbell, and Dallo (2000) on family therapy; Munro (2001) on looked-after children's views. Two studies with particular relevance to children's views as mental health service users, the topic of this article, are Ross and Egan's (2004) preliminary study of 30 Child and Adolescent Mental Health Service (CAHMS) users, ranging in age from 5 to 15 years, using a picture completion method, and Day et al's (2006) exploratory study of 11 children aged between 9 and 14 years participating in focus groups. Aubrey and Dahl's (2006) recent systematic review of studies reporting children's views provides a thorough overview of the studies in this area.…”

Agenda setting with children using the ‘three wishes’ technique

“…In assessments, it is therefore common to use techniques such as using Subjective Units of Distress Scales to elicit feelings (Kiyimba and O'Reilly, 2017), asking children to describe their 'three wishes' to set goals and drawing family trees to understand relationships. However, there is little empirical evidence to examine these strategies, and research has indicated that children/adolescents can feel peripheral to the assessment process (Ross and Egan, 2004), feeling professionals do not always engage them sufficiently or take their views seriously (Buston, 2002).…”