Find out what we've been up to and what's in store for next year
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Like many researchers, the COVID-19 pandemic has disrupted our work but we have still managed to make progress! We welcomed new team members, supervised PhD, Masters and Medical students, formed meaningful partnerships and continued to advocate for better prevention and early intervention for children’s mental health.
Our Evidence Review team, based at the University of Melbourne, summarised the available evidence on interventions that prevent and reduce the negative effects of adversity on children’s mental health in a user-friendly report. Interventions include community-wide initiatives, parenting programs, home visiting programs, economic and social service interventions, psychological therapies and school-based programs. The report was used to inform the fourth edition of The White Book, the RACGP’s guidelines on abuse and violence for working with patients in general practice.
Using this report, we conducted 2 studies to reach a consensus about what evidence-based interventions should be prioritised for preventing mental health problems for children experiencing adversity. The first study was with a group of national experts and the second study was with families living in Wyndham and people who provide services to families in Wyndham. We will conduct a third consensus study in Marrickville, NSW, in early 2021. The results from these studies will be available next year.
The next step for our Child and Family Hub team is to undertake co-design workshops with local families in Wyndham and Marrickville and people who provide health, social and education services in these areas. During the co-design workshops, together we will decide how the Child and Family Hubs will operate at IPC Health in Wyndham Vale and at Marrickville Community Health.
Partnerships - Health Justice Australia
We continue to grow our partnership with Health Justice Australia. Health Justice Australia is a national charity and centre of excellence for health justice partnership. These partnerships embed legal help into healthcare services and teams to support people with intersecting health and legal needs.
Health Justice Australia supports the expansion and effectiveness of health justice partnerships and works to change service systems to improve health and justice outcomes through:
Research: Developing and translating knowledge that is valued by practitioners, researchers, policy-makers and funders
Practice: Building the capability of health, legal and other practitioners to work collaboratively, including through brokering, mentoring and facilitating partnerships
Policy advocacy: Working to reform policy settings, service design and funding, informed by the experience of people coming through health justice partnerships, and their practitioners.
Click here to read more about legal help as mental healthcare. Click here to sign up to receive regular updates from Health Justice Australia
Recent publications
1. Eastwood, J., Barmaky, S., Hansen, S., Miller, E., Ratcliff, S., Fotheringham, P., … De Souza, D. (2020). Refining Program Theory for a Place-Based Integrated Care Initiative in Sydney, Australia. International Journal of Integrated Care, 20(3), 13. DOI: http://doi.org/10.5334/ijic.5422
2. Jorm, A., & Kitchener, A. (2020). Increases in youth mental health services in Australia: Have they had an impact on youth population mental health? Australian & New Zealand Journal of Psychiatry. https://doi.org/10.1177/0004867420976861
3. Ewin, C., Reupert, A., McLean, L., & Ewin, C. (in press). Mobile devices compared to non-digital toy play: The impact of activity type on the quality and quantity of Parent Language. Computers in Human Behavior.
4. Reupert, A., Gladstone, B., Hine, R., Yates, S., McGaw, V., Charles, G., Drost, L., & Foster, K. (in press). Stigma in relation to families living with parental mental illness: An integrative review. International Journal of Mental Health Nursing. https://doi.org/10.1111/inm.12820
5. Laletas, S., Reupert, A., & Goodyear, M. (in press). Exploring the experiences of preschool teachers working with children living with parental mental illness. Early Childhood Education Journal. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10643-020-01131-8
6. Berger, E., Jamshidi, N., & Reupert, A. (in press). Psychological impacts of coronavirus outbreaks on adults: A rapid evidence review. International Journal of Mental Health Promotion.
7. Dunkley-Smith, A., Reupert, A. Sheen, J., & Ling, M. (in press). A scoping review of self-compassion in qualitative studies about children’s experiences of parental mental illness. Mindfulness. https://doi.org/10.1007%2Fs12671-020-01560-x
8. Allen, K., Reupert, A., & Oades, L. (2020, Editors). Building better schools with evidence-based policy. Routledge; Sydney
9. Molloy, C., Beatson, R., Harrop, C., Perini, N., & Goldfeld, S. (2020). Systematic review: Effects of sustained nurse home visiting programs for disadvantaged mothers and children. Journal of Advanced Nursing. http://doi.org/10.1111/jan.14576
10. O'Connor, M., Ponsonby, A.-L., Collier, F., Liu, R., Sly, P. D., Azzopardi, P., . . . Harrison, L. (2020). Exposure to adversity and inflammatory outcomes in mid and late childhood. Brain, Behavior, & Immunity - Health, DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.bbih.2020.100146
11. Williames, S., Temple-Smith, M., & Sanci, L. (2020). Do new doctors get enough child health experience? Pursuit. https://pursuit.unimelb.edu.au/articles/do-new-doctors-get-enough-child-health-experience
12. Jorm, A. (2020). The Productivity Commission says mental ill-health costs Australia billions — it’s time for a proper investment in making things better. The Conversation. https://theconversation.com/the-productivity-commission-says-mental-ill-health-costs-australia-billions-its-time-for-a-proper-investment-in-making-things-better-150184
13. O'Connor, M., Goldfeld, S., Burgner, D., & Priest, N. (2020). Addressing childhood adversity is crucial for post-COVID-19 recovery. InSight. https://insightplus.mja.com.au/2020/43/addressing-childhood-adversity-is-crucial-for-post-covid-19-recovery/
14. Price, D. A. M. H., Middleton, M. M., Matthey, P. S., Goldfeld, P. S., Kemp, P. L., & Orsini, M. F. (2020). A comparison of two measures to screen for mental health symptoms in pregnancy and early postpartum: the Matthey Generic Mood Questionnaire and the Depression, Anxiety, Stress Scales short-form. Journal of Affective Disorders. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jad.2020.11.055
15. Borschmann, R., Craig, S., & Hiscock, H. (2020). Reducing suicide after hospital-treated self-harm in young people. Lancet Child Adolesc Health, 4(2), 92-93. doi:10.1016/s2352-4642(19)30397-9
16. McLean, K., Hiscock, H., Scott, D., & Goldfeld, S. (2020). Foster and kinship carer survey: Accessing health services for children in out-of-home care. Journal of Paediatrics and Child Health. doi: https://doi.org/10.1111/jpc.15157
Podcasts and other resources
Worth celebrating – recent awards and achievements
Professor Sharon Goldfeld has been awarded the inaugural Marles Medal in STEM (science, technology, engineering and medicine) for excellent and original research that led to outstanding achievement in research impact. Sharon received the medal for her leadership of the right@home study, a trial designed to build parenting capacity among disadvantaged parents. The trial delivered additional maternal child health nursing visits to families who had been identified as being in need of additional support to deliver their child the best start in life.
Dr Tess Hall received a Highly Commended award in the Health Services Research Association Best Paper Awards for her paper titled ‘Are people-centred mental health services acceptable and feasible in Timor-Leste? A qualitative study’. Read more about the project and the judge’s comments here.
Professor Harriet Hiscock was awarded the Murdoch Children’s Research Institute Inspiring Others award for her leadership of the Health Services group at the Institute.
Kate Paton was awarded the Murdoch Children’s Research Institute award for Innovation for her work in initiating and implementing the first qualitative research interest group at the Institute.
Grace Aldridge successfully passed her PhD confirmation
Meet our team
Introducing Grace Aldridge
PhD student, Monash University
Tell us about yourself? I’m currently undertaking a PhD in Clinical Psychology at Monash University (under the supervision of A/Prof Marie Yap, and co-supervisors Prof Tony Jorm and Prof Andrea Reupert). I completed my Bachelor of Psychology (with Honours) in 2017, then spent two years working in research assistant roles at the CAMHS And Schools Early Action (CASEA) team at Austin Health and the Parenting and Youth Mental Health lab at Monash University.
What is something people don't know about you? I’m really interested in linguistics and learning new languages!
What do you hope the CRE will achieve? Aside from the important contributions to research, practice and policy, I’m hoping the efforts of this CRE will help families whose children experience adversity feel empowered by their lived experience.
What inspires your work? I’m a huge believer in ‘nothing about us without us’, and I feel very proud to be a part of a CRE who is similarly committed to this principle.
What are you currently working on in the Centre? I’m working on a project that aims to review engagement strategies used by technology-assisted parenting programs. I’m specifically looking at programs that target childhood adversities associated with childhood depression and anxiety. I’m also currently in the process of establishing a collaborative partnership with staff from IPC Health and the Department of Human-Centred Computing at Monash Uni. We’re currently exploring how a technology-assisted parenting program could be integrated into an existing service platform at IPC Health to enhance support and delivery.
Find out more about at Grace and her PhD project here.
