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Collaboration between mental health and child protection services: professionals' perceptions of best practice
- Authors:
- DARLINGTON Yvonne, FEENEY Judith A.
- Journal article citation:
- Children and Youth Services Review, 30(2), February 2008, pp.187-198.
- Publisher:
- Elsevier
This paper provides a qualitative analysis of mental health and child protection professionals' perceptions of best practice when working on cases where there is parental mental illness and there are protection concerns for child(ren). Data were collected as part of an Australian state-wide survey of professionals in both fields. Respondents offered many suggestions for improving interagency relationships, collaborative processes, and outcomes for children and parents. These suggestions encompassed three major content areas: improving communication; enhancing the knowledge base of professionals in both sectors; and providing adequate resources and appropriate service models. Within the three domains of communication, knowledge development and resources, strategies encompassed both formal, organisation-led initiatives as well as more informal initiatives that could be implemented by individuals or small groups. Additionally, strategies were suggested that required implementation at a range of levels of organisational activity, from the front-line workplace to state-wide policy changes. Thus, a complex picture emerges of intersectoral collaboration that comprises several key domains and needs to be implemented at all levels of organisational influence.
Practice challenges at the intersection of child protection and mental health
- Authors:
- DARLINGTON Yvonne, FEENEY Judith A., RIXON Kylie
- Journal article citation:
- Child and Family Social Work, 10(3), August 2005, pp.239-247.
- Publisher:
- Wiley
Examines the complexity of collaboration between child protection and mental health services, where a parent has a mental illness and there are protection concerns for children. The paper reports on data from focused in-depth interviews with 36 child protection workers, adult mental health workers and child and youth mental health workers. Data were analysed thematically, using NVivo to facilitate data management and analysis. Two dimensions were identified. The first, the process of collaboration, relates to four factors that assisted the collaborative process: communication, knowledge, role clarity and resources. The second dimension considers the challenges presented to collaborative work when a parent has a mental illness and a child is in need of protection, and identifies issues that are inherent in cases of this kind. Two types of challenge were identified. The first related to characteristics of mental illness, and included the episodic and/or unpredictable nature of mental illness, incorporating information from psychiatric and parenting capacity assessments, and the provision of ongoing support. The second type of challenge concerned the tension between the conflicting needs of parents and their children, and how this was viewed from both the adult mental health and the child protection perspective. Implications for policy and practice are identified in relation to the need for service models that provide ongoing, flexible support that can be intensified or held back as needed.
Complexity, conflict and uncertainty: issues in collaboration between child protection and mental health services
- Authors:
- DARLINGTON Yvonne, FEENEY Judith A., RIXON Kylie
- Journal article citation:
- Children and Youth Services Review, 26(12), December 2004, pp.1175-1192.
- Publisher:
- Elsevier
This paper provides an analysis of data from a state-wide survey of statutory child protection workers, adult mental health workers, and child mental health workers. Respondents provided details of their experience of collaboration on cases where a parent had mental health problems and there were serious child protection concerns. The survey was conducted as part of a large mixed-method research project on developing best practice at the intersection of child protection and mental health services. Descriptions of 300 cases were provided by 122 respondents. Analyses revealed that a great deal of collaboration occurred across a wide range of government and community-based agencies; that collaborative processes were often positive and rewarding for workers; and that collaboration was most difficult when the nature of the parental mental illness or the need for child protection intervention was contested. The difficulties experienced included communication, role clarity, competing primary focus, contested parental mental health needs, contested child protection needs, and resources.