BACKGROUND/WHY IS THIS IMPORTANT?
Mental health and social-emotional well-being, is fundamental to human development and essential for all children to flourish. A number of mental health disorders that present during childhood and adolescence can negatively influence cognitive, emotional, and social aspects of development. The path forward includes strengthening both the system and individual providers to support healthy social-emotional development and increase capacity and expertise in delivering mental health services in partnership with patients and families.
WHAT ACTIONS HAVE ALREADY BEEN TAKEN?
At Child Health BC, we are continuing to work with our network and health authority partners to support children's mental health. Together we have developed a number of clinical resources and supporting tools.
Feelings First: Social and Emotional Development in the Early Years
From an upstream perspective, Child Health BC has led, with the BC Healthy Child Development Alliance, the Feelings First initiative. The first step involved the development of a social and emotional development (SED) public messaging campaign (www.feelingsfirst.ca). The campaign ran between May and August 2021, was developed for parents and caregivers and aimed at building awareness about the importance of SED in the early years and to provide them with concrete, actionable steps that they could take to support child development in this area.
Tiers of Service
The Tiers of Service work for Children’s Mental Health, Children’s Emergency Department Services and Children’s Medicine, have all highlighted opportunities related to pediatric mental health, and led to the development of provincial guidelines and resources:
• Provincial Least Restraint Guideline for Emergent/Urgent Care and Inpatient Settings
• Substance Intoxication and Withdrawal Guideline for Emergent/Urgent Care
Quality Measures
In collaboration with our health care partners, including patients and families from across the province, we have been working to identify, monitor and report on quality measures. The Child Health Provincial Quality Committee, which has representation from all of the health authorities, is guiding the development of a provincial core set of quality measures.
Five focus areas have been prioritized for quality measure development by the BC Health Authority child and youth operational and medical leads, and have been endorsed by the CHBC Steering Committee:
1. Children living with mental health
2. Children living with asthma
3. Children living with diabetes
4. Children living with health complexity
5. Patient safety.
For additional information visit the Child Health BC Quality Initiates page
WHERE ARE WE NOW?
Feelings First: Social and Emotional Development in the Early Years
Child Health BC has received funding from the Ministry of Mental Health to expand the Feelings First initiative into a sustainable provincial program for Early Childhood Educators (ECEs) and parents and caregivers. The goal of this initiative is to build capacity of ECEs, parents and caregivers to promote healthy social and emotional development with children from birth to 5 years old in their childcare settings and at home. Currently a wide variety of provincial contributors are involved in this development, with representation from health, education, government, non-profit, academia and advocacy. The launch of this provincial program will be in 2023.
Tiers of Service
Child Health BC partnered with the Regional Health Authorities to complete self-assessments based on the Mental Health Tiers of Service Module. Phase one focused specifically on health delivered services. Results from the first phase have been shared with the health authorities and key partners across the province. Planning is currently underway to complete phase two: self-assessments for community-based services.
Through a priority setting process, two provincial projects were endorsed by provincial committees:
1. Provincial Child and Youth Mental Health Education Strategy for Acute Care Sites.
2. Provincial System to Support Care Closer to Home for Children and Youth Presenting to Acute Care Settings with Mental Health Conditions.
Provincial Child and Youth Mental Health Education Strategy for Acute Care Sites
Child Health BC is leading a provincial working group to develop an interprofessional education strategy to support healthcare providers caring for children and youth with mental health conditions in acute care (emergency and inpatient) sites (T2-T4).The aim of this project is to provide children, youth and their families with person-centered and culturally safe mental health care, informed by best and wise practices.
Provincial System to Support Care Closer to Home for Children and Youth Presenting to Acute Care Settings with Mental Health Conditions
Child Health BC is working in collaboration with regional and provincial partners to develop a system for T2-T4 (acute care) providers to access child and youth mental health expertise in a timely manner to provide appropriate evidence based care for admitted/ED patients. The first step has been to work with a demonstration site to refine the processes and evaluate the impacts prior to upscaling across BC.
Quality Measures
Ongoing work is focused on refinement, collection and reporting out of the quality measures.