Short articles

Up to half of all Australian children and adolescents who meet criteria for a mental health disorder receive insufficient treatment (or no treatment at all), even though effective treatments are available. Children with complex mental health conditions are particularly at risk of inadequate treatment because input is generally needed from schools and community services as well as healthcare providers.

This short article has been adapted from a paper recently published in Child and Family Social Work: ‘Cumulative harm in the child protection system: The Australian context’ (https://doi.org/10.1111/cfs.12621). The paper was based on a systematic literature review of how ‘cumulative harm’ is understood and operationalised within current Australian child protection legislation, policy and practice.

Evidence-based parenting interventions have been shown to have immediate and long-term positive effects on children's wellbeing. More recently, research has shown increased positive changes in children's behaviour and better parenting practices resulting from programs involving fathers as well as mothers. Yet fathers are underrepresented in services that concern child wellbeing.

This short article is a summary of the longer paper titled, ‘Testing competing mediators of the association between pre-conception maternal depression and child health-related quality of life.’

This article describes the social-emotional outcomes of the 'Dads And Daughters Exercising and Empowered' (DADEE) trial, which aimed to improve the bond between fathers and daughters through co-physical activity.

Children with intellectual disability are more likely to experience mental health difficulties than their typically developing peers. Efforts towards prevention and early intervention are required from all support services in order to best promote the mental health of children with intellectual disability and their families.

This article presents a summary of the findings reported in 'Latent profiles of early developmental vulnerabilities in a NSW child cohort at age 5 years' (2018) and 'Early developmental risk for subsequent childhood mental disorders in an Australian population cohort' (2018).

Over the past 20 years, Australia has emerged as a leader in campaigns that have focused on increasing mental health literacy, particularly for adult/adolescent depression and anxiety disorders. But what about child mental health literacy, which refers to adult knowledge and beliefs about mental health problems for children under 12 years of age? Aside from the recent work of the Emerging Minds: National Workforce Centre for Child Mental Health (NWCCMH) and beyondblue's BeYou initiative, there has been a noticeable lack of focus on child mental health literacy both in Australia and internationally.

This short article has been adapted from the longer research paper recently published in the Journal of Affective Disorders: ‘Depression literacy and stigma influence how parents perceive and respond to adolescent depressive symptoms.’ The paper reported the findings of an Australian study that surveyed 440 parents of adolescents.

Attachment security is known to play an important role in children's development. The role of Early Childhood Intervention (ECI) professionals is to enhance the development and wellbeing of children with a disability.2 However, little is known about the knowledge, views or practice of ECI professionals regarding attachment.

This article highlights the key findings and resources of the project titled Invisible Practices: Intervention with fathers who use violence. The project aimed to increase the capacity of practitioners to work with fathers who use violence, and to develop evidence-based principles and practice guidelines for practitioners and organisations.

This short article has been adapted from a paper: ‘Does a perinatal infant mental health team hold the family in mind? Opportunities and challenges for working systemically in this specialised field’, based on a small, qualitative study of perinatal infant mental health clinicians, that was recently published in the Australian and New Zealand Journal of Family Therapists.