New child mental health guidelines released

New guidelines designed to help work mental health into early childhood health checks (ECHCs) were published this week.
 
The launch of the National Guidelines for including mental health and wellbeing in early childhood health checks was welcomed by RACGP Specific Interests Child and Young Person’s Health Chair, Dr Tim Jones.
 
‘Supporting kids well, we need to take into account not just the child themselves, but the whole of the family, everything that surrounds the child,’ he told newsGP.

‘Also this idea that to give the right support, we need to make it about what needs are present rather than what diagnosis is present.
 
‘So it is really good to see that all reflected and formalised in guidelines – this is going to help kids get the right sort of care and support.’
 
The authors of the guidelines, which were developed under the auspices of the National Mental Health Commission, stress they ‘are not intended to encourage a disproportionate or unwarranted focus on diagnosing mental illness in children’.
 
‘Rather, they are designed to broaden the focus of existing ECHCs to consider mental health and wellbeing in a holistic, ecological way and provide early support and interventions where needed,’ they wrote.
 
They also state that the guidelines, which are aimed at GPs, child and family health nurses, and health workers from Aboriginal community controlled health organisations in some areas, are not clinical standards.
 
Instead, they are designed to ‘enhance the approach to mental health and wellbeing in ECHCs’ and improve families’ experiences and uptake as a result.
 
For Dr Jones, one of the key elements included in the guidelines is the use of the Children’s Wellbeing Continuum which he describes as the ‘idea that anyone can progress in a positive direction’.
 
‘My experience working with GPs in this space for a long time is that we are so good at trying to figure out what’s wrong,’ he said.
 
‘But sometimes what’s really needed and what empowers family is just figuring out how they can start to take some positive steps along the continuum, be it better sleep, better nutrition, better exercise, better communication.
 
‘And that those incremental gains are important in the short term, but even more important in the long term, because that’s how we get our good outcomes.’
 
The guidelines’ release is the culmination of a two-year process, with the Mental Health Commission tasked by the Federal Government in 2023 to develop an approach that would help include mental health and wellbeing in ECHCs. It follows the release of draft guidelines in 2024 and public consultation.
 
According to the authors, the guidelines complement the National Children’s Mental Health and Wellbeing Strategy, which was described as a ‘world first’ at the time of its release in 2021. 


They stress the importance of equal access to ECHCs and note that the main financial constraint raised during the consultation process was not being able to afford medical appointments, including gap fees to attend a GP for specialist referrals.
 
Last month, Health and Ageing Minister Mark Butler suggested Medicare-funded child health checks could return as part of reforms of the National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS).
 
‘I am really hopeful that the child health checks as they’re proposed under this NDIS and Medicare reform are a great leveller to make sure that everyone can get this sort of wrap-around care, assessment and support embedded as part of the community healthcare they’re accessing,’ Dr Jones said.
 
‘We’re seeing a lot of movement towards reinstating primary care as the chief assessors and providers of support to child wellbeing and development, and I see the early childhood checks as fundamental to that.
 
‘But one of the things that will be needed for those to really work is that good long-standing relationship with the GP, who knows you, knows your family, so that they can make that accurate determination of the factors playing a role in that child’s wellbeing.’
 
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children’s health early childhood health checks ECHCs mental health National Mental Health Commission