Supporting the workforce around child mental health

The challenge

To improve mental health in children by giving professionals who work with families the tools and skills they need to intervene early.

Who we’re working with

We are a key delivery partner in Emerging Minds: the National Workforce Centre for Child Mental Health. The Australian Government Department of Health has invested in the centre as a way to support both clinical and non-clinical professionals who work with children, parents and families.

We are working together on this project with other key partners:

• The Australian Institute of Family Studies
• The Royal Australian College of General Practitioners
• The Australian National University

 What we’re doing

The National Workforce Centre for Child Mental Health, led by Emerging Minds, was established in 2017 to assist professionals and organisations who work with children and/or parents/families to identify, assess and support children at risk of mental health conditions.

Emerging Minds has developed:

• a national online hub with real-time access to support, resources and training
• tools for engaging children and families in the design and delivery of services
• a network of child mental health consultants to support practices
• a communication and implementation strategy to put evidence into action.

Our role in this major national initiative is to provide content development expertise and leadership in the following areas:

• synthesising and translating knowledge
• implementing programs and services
• bringing evidence to practice by collaborating on development of content.

The results so far

The Emerging Minds web hub was launched in 2017 and now contains a wide range of resources. Funding for Emerging Minds has also been extended until 2023 – a move that will increase the National Workforce Centre’s capacity to deliver support to a broader range of professionals.

We’ve completed a number of rapid evidence reviews summarising data, literature and policy relating to key topic areas for the initiative. The Emerging Minds consortium is now using these reviews in developing e-learning courses and other content for professionals. We regularly contribute gaps and needs analyses to inform prioritisation of content for primary health care professionals such as chid health nurses and paediatricians.

In addition, the internal evaluation framework we co-developed with Emerging Minds and the Australian Institute of Family Studies captures the core outcome areas for the National Workforce Centre.

Examples of our work published and contributed to on Emerging Minds

• Identifying and responding to bullying in the pre-teen years: The role of primary health care practitioners
• Understanding child mental health and chronic physical conditions
• Exploring child mental health concerns with parents
• Fathers’ mental health and parenting: Implications for promoting children’s mental health
• Parental mental health and parenting: How are they related?

Next steps

We will continue to develop content that contributes to e-learning and other resources on the Emerging Minds Hub.

Learn more

• Visit the Emerging Minds web hub
• Read our news story on the Emerging Minds launch announcement
• Emerging Minds: Why is it difficult for parents to talk to practitioners about their children’s mental health?
• Emerging Minds: Sharing information with parents about children’s social and emotional wellbeing