{"id":4172,"date":"2021-03-09T13:39:45","date_gmt":"2021-03-09T02:39:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.rch.org.au\/ccch\/?p=4172"},"modified":"2021-03-23T15:39:08","modified_gmt":"2021-03-23T04:39:08","slug":"australias-child-mental-health-system","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.rch.org.au\/ccch\/2021\/03\/09\/australias-child-mental-health-system\/","title":{"rendered":"Australia\u2019s child mental health system"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>In a new study,\u00a0led by Professor Harriet Hiscock and team, clinicians identified the barriers\u00a0faced by Australian parents when seeking help for common child mental health conditions and the opportunities for improving the health system.\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><span data-contrast=\"none\">A survey of mental health clinicians found that fragmented services, long wait times and\u00a0<\/span><span data-contrast=\"none\">inadequate training are preventing children from receiving high-quality mental health care in Australia. <\/span><span data-ccp-props=\"{&quot;134233117&quot;:true,&quot;134233118&quot;:true,&quot;134233279&quot;:true,&quot;201341983&quot;:0,&quot;335559740&quot;:240}\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span data-contrast=\"none\">A new study led by Professor Harriet Hiscock and team,\u00a0<\/span><span data-contrast=\"none\">found with the mental health system struggling under major structural, training, resource and workforce issues, many vulnerable children were not receiving sufficient help that would likely improve their symptoms.\u00a0<\/span><span data-ccp-props=\"{&quot;134233117&quot;:true,&quot;134233118&quot;:true,&quot;134233279&quot;:true,&quot;201341983&quot;:0,&quot;335559740&quot;:240}\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span data-contrast=\"none\">Professor Hiscock\u202fsaid because half of all mental health conditions present before 14 years of age, access to high-quality mental health care for younger children was crucial.\u202f<\/span><span data-ccp-props=\"{&quot;134233117&quot;:true,&quot;134233118&quot;:true,&quot;134233279&quot;:true,&quot;201341983&quot;:0,&quot;335559740&quot;:240}\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span data-contrast=\"none\">Clinicians have identified opportunities and many practical ideas to improve the system, including<\/span><span data-contrast=\"none\">\u00a0improved access to child psychiatrists, mental health training, co-located support services and referral pathways and Medicare funding changes.<\/span><span data-ccp-props=\"{&quot;134233117&quot;:true,&quot;134233118&quot;:true,&quot;134233279&quot;:true,&quot;201341983&quot;:0,&quot;335559740&quot;:240}\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span data-contrast=\"none\">Professor Hiscock said with two major inquiries &#8211; the Productivity Commission into Mental Health and Victoria\u2019s Royal Commission into Mental Health Services &#8211; Australia was ideally poised to test new models of care and training to improve access to and quality of child mental health care.\u202f<\/span><span data-ccp-props=\"{&quot;134233117&quot;:true,&quot;134233118&quot;:true,&quot;134233279&quot;:true,&quot;201341983&quot;:0,&quot;335559740&quot;:240}\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<h3>Read more<\/h3>\n<ul>\n<li><span data-contrast=\"none\">Access the academic paper: <em><a href=\"https:\/\/journals.sagepub.com\/doi\/abs\/10.1177\/0004867420984242?journalCode=anpa&amp;\">Clinicians\u2019 perceptions of the Australian Paediatric Mental Health Service System: Problems and solutions<\/a><\/em>, Australian &amp; New Zealand Journal of Psychiatry (subscription required)<\/span><\/li>\n<li>Read the MCRI media release: <a href=\"https:\/\/www.mcri.edu.au\/news\/fragmented-services-long-wait-times-and-inadequate-training-prevents-high-quality-mental-health\"><em>Fragmented services, long wait times and inadequate training prevents high-quality mental health care for children, clinicians say<\/em>,<\/a> 22 Jan 2021<\/li>\n<li>Read the Sydney Morning Herald news article: <a href=\"https:\/\/www.smh.com.au\/national\/shocking-numbers-of-children-presenting-with-mental-health-issues-20210123-p56wbp.html\"><em>\u2018Shocking\u2019 numbers of children presenting with mental health issues, <\/em><\/a>24 Jan 2021<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>What are the barriers faced by Australian parents when seeking help for common mental health conditions?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":26,"featured_media":4189,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[23862,8971],"tags":[12036,11979],"class_list":["post-4172","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-childrens-health-and-development-march","category-featured","tag-child-mental-health","tag-harriet-hiscock"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.rch.org.au\/ccch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4172","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.rch.org.au\/ccch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.rch.org.au\/ccch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.rch.org.au\/ccch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/26"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.rch.org.au\/ccch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4172"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.rch.org.au\/ccch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4172\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4224,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.rch.org.au\/ccch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4172\/revisions\/4224"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.rch.org.au\/ccch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4189"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.rch.org.au\/ccch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4172"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.rch.org.au\/ccch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4172"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.rch.org.au\/ccch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4172"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}