Short articles

General practitioners are uniquely placed to support children’s mental health and development. No other health professional has the same kind of ongoing relationship and level of intimate knowledge of a family’s health. But with this insight, comes responsibility to act when things aren’t going well.

With the COVID-19 Delta variant across many parts of Australia and the accompanying lockdowns, school closures and surge in detailed media coverage, many children may be anxious about what this means for them. This short article looks at ways to talk with children about protection from the Delta strain and ways to navigate through these challenging times.

Exposure to family violence and traumatic events has long-lasting effects. Children’s brains and bodies are malleable, making trauma faster to manifest, affecting the way children react and relate to others and their physical environment. This fact sheet adapted from Tucci et. al. provides information about the effects of family violence on a child’s social and emotional wellbeing, and ways that interventions can play a role in healing.

Service providers will often need to refer families and children to other services for specialist assessment or care. Unfortunately, waiting lists for these services are quite common, which can cause further stress for families as they continue to deal with the status quo. This short article was inspired by research into barriers and facilitators to early childhood mental health pathways in the Barwon region in southwest Victoria, with one of the barriers identified as long wait times for appointments, and the following practices were suggested by professionals interviewed for this research.

This short article explores research conducted from May 2019 which investigated the barriers and facilitators to mental health care pathways in the early childhood mental health sector, with the aim of better understanding the behaviours and systems that underpin service co-ordination across sectors.

Strong self-regulation skills in early childhood are linked with a wide range of health and achievement outcomes across the lifespan, including positive mental and physical health, and educational attainment. This short article explores the factors linked with self-regulation growth in young children, with findings to suggest that self-regulation skills could be supported through addressing key aspects of children’s surrounding environment and context.

Research has found that around 14% of children in Australia and 10–20% of children globally experience mental health difficulties. Previous research has suggested that parental mental health is an important determinant of how children engage with, and respond to, treatment in child and adolescent mental health services (CAMHS). This short article looks at a study which investigated the prevalence of parental mental illness in CAMHS, and the ways in which CAMHS and child and adolescent mental health practitioners can support children, parents and families in these circumstances.

To evaluate the effectiveness of the PERCS guides, a pilot study was conducted with six practitioners across five services which work with adults in the context of problematic substance use.

This study aimed to understand the contribution the PERCS conversation guides made to practitioners’ work with fathers who were using violence and mothers who were experiencing violence.

Children are not immune to the effects of uncertainty. While research has shown they can recognise and respond to uncertainty from as young as 20 months old, children need support and guidance from the adults in their lives to help them to understand and cope with change and uncertainty. This article outlines six simple, easy ways in which parents can help their child to navigate uncertain times.

This case study reviews Emerging Minds’ use of family participation (that is, the involvement of more than one member from a family, for example a mother and daughter) to advance the practices of co-design and co-delivery. It illustrates the value of family participation, explores the process, and highlights key learnings.

Surveys show that most children know about climate change and are worried about its impact on their future. This short article addresses children's emotional responses to climate change and how professionals and parents can respond to children's concerns by supporting children's emotional wellbeing.