The guidelines for early childhood health checks have now landed, with a focus on how social inequity can affect the process of GP care.
New national guidelines on implementing mental health and wellbeing care in early childhood health checks (ECHCs) have arrived, with the Department of Health, Disability and Ageing claiming it will meet the unique needs of families and prioritise child safety and wellbeing.
An important distinction is that these guidelines are not clinical or practice standards and do not prescribe screening or assessment tools for wellbeing in early childhood.
Instead, this set of guidelines are intended to assist health professionals in enhancing the approach to mental health and wellbeing as part of ECHCs.
The final report of the Independent NDIS review Working together to deliver the NDIS included a recommendation to expand ECHCs to also account for mental wellbeing.
This would ensure early identification and intervention for children with developmental concerns or disability with a recommended implementation into mainstream child services including general practice.
DoHDA has also reiterated that, whilst state and territory governments are responsible for ECHC delivery, this responsibility is still shared with general practitioners.
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Expansion to these schedules has been proposed via the development of a strengths based and culturally responsive approach.
According to the department, this will value “children and families as experts in their own experiences” and recognise how the challenges they face might be impacting their mental health and wellbeing.
New elements of the guideline focus on how to adapt early childhood care in a holistic manner, taking consideration for the “interrelated nature of a child and family’s health, social, cultural and economic environments” into account.
DoHDA has also made a special note to practitioners that complex issues require specialist support and that GPs should provide information and support patient transition to referred specialists.
Bringing ECHCs under a nationally consistent approach was a major focus of the new guidelines, meaning that the health checks are streamlined across states and territories.
Further information was given on how to ensure cultural safety as part of ECHCs, requiring practitioners to “commit to their continued and ongoing cultural learning and reflection, which is at the core of culturally safe care.”
This was disclosed further in the context of providing ECHCs for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Families, ensuring that GPs are carrying through culturally sensitive care to ECHCs.
“Social and emotional wellbeing extends beyond conventional Western concepts of mental health and mental illness, and emphasises the interdependency of the cultural determinants of health (such as relationships with family, kin and community), and connections to land and sea, culture, spirituality and ancestry,” the guidelines read.
“For families from culturally and linguistically diverse communities, this means practitioners must acknowledge and harness the strength and diversity of the many ways to care for and parent children.”
Supporting parents as part of ECHCs was another focal point of the guidelines, highlighting how the mental wellbeing of children is a sensitive topic for some families.
“For some families, any ‘check’ by a service can create anxiety about being judged or may draw out an underlying fear that their child could be removed from their care,” the guidelines read.
“Practitioners need to be aware of these possible experiences and orientate their approach towards individual family needs and safe conversations.
“Building trusting relationships between caregivers and practitioners is crucial to having open, honest and safe conversations about mental health and wellbeing.”
