August 'Mental Health Matters'

Latest News

What is the Campus Mental Health Strategy?

The Campus Mental Health Strategy 2021-25 sets out to achieve an integrated approach to infant, child and adolescent (0-18 years) mental health care, research, and education across the Melbourne Children’s Campus.

Children, their parents/carers and their families are at the heart of the strategy and have active participation in its design, development and implementation.

 

Our vision is that all infants, children and adolescents and their families will be able to access high quality, equitable and consistent prevention and mental health care where and when they need it to achieve sustained, optimised developmental, health and wellbeing outcomes.

How is the Camus Mental Health Strategy being delivered?

The Strategy is being delivered through five key focus areas:

• aligning and coordinating Campus mental health research activities
• improving staff knowledge, skills and confidence to support infants, children, young people and their families through education and training
• embedding of metal health care across the campus that is:
  • Family centred
  • Trauma informed and focussed on prevention
  • Evidence-based and consistent

  To learn more about our strategy and meet our team, click the buttons below. 

We are currently in the final stages of developing evidence-based Clinical Practice Guidelines for anxiety in children and young people.

The draft guideline will be published for public consultation on 6 September. 

Anxiety is one of the most common mental health problems in children but there are significant gaps and variations in practice for managing anxiety.

There are currently no evidence-based guidelines available for the identification, assessment, and management of anxiety for children.

Working alongside clinicians, researchers and Lived Experience Advisors, we have developed evidence-based and best practice recommendations and clinical context for the treatment of anxiety.

We are now sharing it with mental health professionals and organisations to ensure the guidelines are accurate and relevant in a real-world clinical context.

The completed guidelines are set to be published in October 2023.

For more information please contact CMHS@mcri.edu.au. 

Register now for our CMHS midway event & Grand Rounds!

Embedding trauma informed, family centred, and evidence-based approaches into practice: an update on the Campus Mental Health Strategy

Children’s mental health is an ongoing priority for the Melbourne Children’s Campus and its three partners. We have been working together to develop and implement an integrated strategy that aims to align mental health research activities, improve staff knowledge, skills and confidence through education and training; and embed approaches to supporting mental health that are evidence-based, family centred, and trauma informed.

Initially intended for two years, the strategy has now received funding for a further three years from The Royal Children’s Hospital Foundation. This Grand Rounds will provide an update on the progress of the strategy and share learnings as we move into the implementation phase. 

Date: Wednesday 25 October

Time: 12.30pm

Location: Ella Latham Auditorium

Register through Eventbrite today!

The Grand Rounds will explore:

• the importance of addressing whole child health/wellbeing through considering and supporting the environment around the child, including the mental health needs of parents/carers and siblings
• why we are focussing on trauma-informed care/prevention and how we are working with colleagues across campus to develop a common language and understanding
• what we are learning as we test the introduction of validated patient reported outcome measures for anxiety into routine care, and other evidence-based resources developed to improve care for children experiencing anxiety and other common mental health conditions.

Post rounds lunch and meet and greet

The development and implementation of the strategy up until now would not have been possible without the significant contribution of time and expertise made by a huge number of colleagues across campus.

We invite all campus staff who would like to learn more or get involved to join us for lunch after the rounds, to celebrate this milestone and thank you for your support (past or future). 

BSP evaluation

The Campus Mental Health Strategy invites campus staff to participate in the evaluation of the Behaviour Support Profile (BSP). The BSP went live on EPIC in 2019 and we are now evaluating the effectiveness, usability and acceptability of the tool. 

The BSP is a documentation tool for the non-medical preferences and needs of our patients, including their communication preferences/abilities, sensory needs, behaviours of concerns, triggers, and calming strategies to name a few.

It can be used for any patient with any diagnosis, but is aimed at supporting patients with communication difficulties, behaviours of concern, or severe anxiety. It can be created or updated by any clinician in the EMR.

The purpose of this anonymous survey is to gather insights about different levels of awareness and understanding of the BSP as well as gauge any ideas, improvements or feedback you may have.  Even if you haven't heard or used the BSP before, we still want to hear from you!

By continuing with this survey, it's implied you consent to participate, and you understand the nature and purpose of the survey. Your consent signifies you agree to the use of your responses for analysis and research purposes only.     

The survey will take around 2-7 minutes to complete, depending on your familiarity with the tool. 

Please visit RedCap to complete the survey.                                               

We are also seeking interested staff members to participate in a number of focus groups to further discuss your experience and ideas. The focus groups will be held in person for 45 minutes in September.

To find out the dates and register for one of these focus groups in September, please contact CMHS@mcri.edu.au.

This study is supported by the Campus Mental Health Strategy and is approved by the ethics committee at The Royal Children’s Hospital. The confidentiality of all participants is assured. 

For more information about the BSP please contact CMHS@mcri.edu.au.

Journal club

Join our Campus Mental Health Strategy Research Journal Club!

What is the Strategy Journal Club?
The Strategy Research Journal Club is a forum for all Melbourne Children’s Campus staff to come together and discuss current research in the child and adolescent mental health arena. 

What happened in the August Journal Club?

We were very excited to see new and returning faces from across campus at our August journal club last Tuesday! The open-access article we discussed covered cross-cohort changes in parent-reported emotional problem trajectories.

This paper found evidence of population-level change – emotional problems arise earlier, get worse faster, and are more likely to continue throughout adolescence in the modern cohort (2000 vs 1991).

What does this mean? We discussed implications of these findings for research and clinical practice, including increased awareness of early childhood emotional problems, the limits of reliable early detection, and the potential benefits and drawbacks of parent-report measures. 

The Melbourne Children’s Campus has multiple large and well-defined cohorts including the Child to Adult Transition Study (CATS) and GenV. These cohorts will track mental health outcomes to reveal much more about emotional problem trajectories in children and adolescents growing up in Australia today.

How do I join the next Club meeting? 

Join us for our next Journal Club on September 27 at 2pm-3pm where we will delve into 'Psychiatric disorders in paediatric-onset immune-mediated inflammatory diseases: a nationwide Danish study'.

Please note, this article is not open access for all campus staff. To access the article please contact CMHS@mcri.edu.au.

Zoom meeting link:

https://mcri.zoom.us/j/69564227147?pwd=TTB1V09VZ1RkRU01WFY0OTFNTGZpZz09

Meeting ID: 695 6422 7147

Passcode: 413532

To sign up to the mailing list and receive updates, please contact the team at CMHS@mcri.edu.au.