Bid to bolster GPs’ confidence in child mental health care

‘Mismatch’ is a word mentioned often by Brad Morgan.
 
As the director of child mental health organisation Emerging Minds, Mr Morgan says GPs can have a ‘huge impact’ on child mental health by supporting the families through early intervention.
 
But he believes this mismatch lies in the support many GPs receive, and what they face in today’s consulting rooms.
 
‘Over the last few years, there have been lots of efforts to try and help put more emphasis on how we support children in the earlier years, particularly around mental health and development,’ he told newsGP.
 
‘We’re at this point where there’s probably been a mismatch of how we’ve prepared GPs, and how we support them to respond to these needs versus what is now presenting in their everyday practice.’
 
Mr Morgan’s view is given weight by a 2024 Emerging Minds survey that measured the primary care system’s capacity to treat the mental health concerns of children aged 0–12 years.
 
Across more than 50 occupations in the system, GPs ranked lowest in terms of confidence.
 
Mr Morgan attributes this to a lack of wraparound support for GPs, particularly those in rural and remote areas.
 
‘In a lot of practice areas, it’s put on GPs to find that support, rather than have it provided to do that work,’ he said.
 
‘GPs are often that first point of entry, but if you look to other professions who do respond to those presentations, if that’s their specialisation, they actually get a lot of wraparound support for that to feel confident.
 
‘They get supervision, all those things. So that’s where there’s been a bit of a mismatch that we see in that area for GPs.’
 
Mr Morgan said Emerging Minds has heard from GPs in some regions that they are the ‘only point of call for a lot of people’.
 
‘It’s actually a lot to hold,’ he said.
 
‘And if you’re not feeling supported, or don’t feel like you’ve got someone to tap into to give you some advice or guidance, it can actually be, I think, pretty scary and stressful for some of them.’
 
Emerging Minds has now partnered with organisations, including the RACGP, to design training and professional development for GPs, which is all freely available.
 
Emerging Minds has a dedicated suite of resources and accredited training opportunities for GPs to help support the mental health of children, including assessment tools, podcasts and resources to share with parents.
 
But, Mr Morgan says, ‘training isn’t enough’.
 
In response, Emerging Minds has been working to ‘look at how we can provide that wraparound support that’s more ongoing, and more of the structures that can help that to happen’.
 
‘When we’ve done that, we actually have seen much more improved engagement, but also more confidence in GPs, and in the others that they’re working alongside, primary care nurses and other groups as well,’ Mr Morgan said.
 
This was also borne out in a National Workforce Survey, he said, with workforce confidence improvements observed across various professions.
 
RACGP Specific Interests Child and Young Person’s Health Chair Dr Tim Jones believes GPs’ lack of confidence stems from them not recognising ‘how valuable their core skills are to kids and families’.
 
‘They see the complexity of child mental health, the way families communicate, all the different factors that play a role, and they feel like it’s overwhelming,’ he told newsGP.
 
‘I don’t think we have a knowledge problem. I think it’s purely a confidence problem.’
 
Dr Jones agrees with Mr Morgan that GP training isn’t providing what is needed ‘to really boost their confidence in this space’.
 
‘I realise our curriculum is always competing for space, but I think child development and child mental health is just such a huge need that it’s very hard for an early-career GP to then find the time to go back and learn it,’ he said.
 
‘But if you earn it as a registrar, you do it very well.’
 
Dr Jones has worked with Emerging Minds for several years as part of the college’s partnership.
 
However, he believes there still ‘probably isn’t enough awareness among GPs of just what resources they provide for us and for our families that we see too.’
 
‘As GPs, we also have the greatest capacity to follow people up,’ Dr Jones said.
 
‘Wait times for every other service is huge around our country, but we can just keep seeing families and chipping away at things with them, and I don’t think we recognise that.
 
‘That’s what probably makes the biggest difference.’
 
Emerging Minds has created a webinar series that is available to view on the RACGP website.
 
The next webinar, A ‘whole child’ approach for families waiting on an ADHD assessment, is on 25 March at 7pm.
 
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