Help me seek help

Editor's Notes

• #2: 1 min Sara Welcome to our latest webinar – Help me seek help | Make it safe. What is KidsMatter –a framework to guide service, schools and schemes in growing healthy minds at their place … and professional learning about how to do this. More details about getting your organisation registered at the end.
• #3: 2 min Sara Acknowledgement – you can acknowledge the country you are joining from in the chat What we can learn from Aboriginal Ways of knowing, doing and being and with a commitment to reconciliation that listening is critical – listening with our whole being Learning on Country quote: https://www.kidsmatter.edu.au/ebook/kmec/KidsMatter-learning-on-country/#/10
• #4: 1 min Sara In todays webinar we are going to explore help seeking Vital in the process of help seeking and also while we are here learning together is that we keep in mind self-care, privacy, confidentiality https://www.kidsmatter.edu.au/early-childhood/blog/poster-when-we-feel-safe
• #5: 4mins Sara, Lyn and Kerry There are many circumstances where children, families and indeed our colleagues may seek help, the conversation will focus specifically about help seeking to support mental health. And this webinar will also pick up on many of the ideas covered in our recent webinars – Tricky conversations with families and Getting Help – deciding when and where along with others in the past – You can access any of these webinars on our website Introduce Lyn and Kerry – Its great to have Lyn and Kerry joining us today – their knowledge and interest in this area will be really valuable. They are going to speak to each of the following Overview of 4 parts We are going to explore the ideas of help seeking in 4 ways. Firstly to understand what help seeking is and why it is important. Then to identify some of the barriers and challenges to help seeking The think about how early childhood services can develop whole of service approaches to invite and encourage help seeking from chidlren and families And also explore how early childhood services can respond to help seeking that are supportive and helpful
• #6: 2 min Sara Learning together is integral to KidsMatter. In professional learning communities we share, listen, ask and reflect together to discover ways to grow healthy minds. That’s what will happen today KidsMatter Topics Communication and Responding to children who are experiencing MH difficulties Using webinars for professional learning … facilitated learning, opportunities for reflection and chance to chat. You will receive a certificate for attending today, however to be identified as completing the professional learning topics identified here … a few more steps. Be registered as a KidsMatter participants … [link to start the experience] Learn and grow from knowledge acquired or deepened today … turn learning into action … and let us know.
• #7: https://www.beyondblue.org.au/about-us/research-projects/statistics-and-references www.rchpoll.org.au/wp-content/uploads/2017/10/RCH-National-Child-Health-Poll-Report_Poll-8_Final.pdf
• #8: 8 mins Lyn Early childhood mental health – develop a shared understanding in your early childhood context – across the whole service/school and with each other, with children and with families Recognise mental health difficulties – when early childhood services understand and recognise mental health difficulties they are well places to intervene and support children and their families to improve their mental health. Integral to this is recognising and supproting help seeking behaviours (we will talk more about this later) Help seeking behaviours Child The child could be showing us that he or she needs help through their behaviours – older children may be able to express their needs but we can’t rely upon children asking directly for help. We need to be alert for signs (examples…), take time to notice and observe when and why the behaviours may be happening, ask/check in with the child and respond appropriately – which may mean actions at the service or a discussion with family members. Parent and carers Parents or carers may ask us directly for help or, like children, their behaviours may suggest that they need help (eg rushing in late every morning, having trouble separating from the child). This may be help for the child or for themselves (and often it is connected) Sometimes extended family members (such as grandparents) may approach the early childhood service for help. While we want to encourage people to seek help, this can place staff in a tricky situation with confidentiality and the risk of undermining the parents.   
• #9: Kerry on screen Last webinar on Seeking Help we talked about advantages and disadvantages of diagnosis Wanted to continue this conversation around challenges and barriers to help seeking IntroductionEarly childhood settings play a crucial role in identifying and reducing the impact of barriers to help seeking. Many of these barriers can discourage families from discussing sensitive topics and raising their own concerns. However many of these challenges can reduce when educators communicate with families on a regular basis, work collaboratively, and respect their input.   If we can understand some of the barriers that prevent parents from seeking help, we are more able to connect with that parent, reduce defensiveness and fears, assist them to focus on the needs of their child and explore possible ways that they can move forward. Being able to “tune in” to how a parent/carer is feeling and why they may be feeling that way is really important, and can help educators build a positive relationship with families and establish a sense of trust, cooperation and mutual problem solving Some Common Challenges or Barriers: Research with parents tells us that barriers can occur in 3-4 key areas: Recognising MH difficulties (MH literacy) – what we know about MH Accessing Support Services Stigma Educators Not having a connection or trust with parents can also be a barrier. Next slide
• #10: Some interesting research findings from RCH Report: We know that early support and treatment for MH problems in children can improve outcomes, but many parents felt these things were best left to work themselves out over time (especially Dads) Only 35% parents are confident they could recognise the signs of a MH problem in their child 33% parents do not recognise that persistent sadness or crying is not normal in children 30% parents reported being so busy, it was hard to connect with their children 54% said what would help them most is having more info about day to day signs of physical and day to day, social, emotional and behavioural problems in children It may be that a child has come to a service already having a diagnosis of a mental health difficulty. We may not know the parent very well and have not had much time to develop the relationship – they may be new to service. In that case we may use a very matter of fact approach in the beginning eg. "Tell us about your child.  What are their strengths?  Do they have any challenges?  Have they got any mental health problems that we need to talk about, we need to be aware of."  This approach can assist families to feel that this is a place where my child, with all their difficulties and strengths, can be understood and well cared for. (Nicole Video 3.1) A common barrier is that parents may not be ready to respond to what an educator is telling them about their child’s behavior or identified difficulties. This may be due to fears about what that means for child or family. As an educator, you may identify a child with difficulties at beginning of year but parents may not be ready until much later. Educators can assist in that situation by being in tune with the parent’s feelings and needs and creating/holding a safe space for that parent to talk about what is concerning them. It may mean putting own feelings aside at first, and respecting the parent’s wishes to not pursue intervention at that time. Accessibility to support or services: Costs associated with accessing help or time spent on waiting lists can be barriers Lack information about where to get help; not knowing where to go or how to navigate the health and community systems (mentioned above) Past negative experiences of accessing support eg. feelings about not being treated well or that help made no difference   Stigma: Stigma around mental health difficulties, feelings of shame or denial, fears about a child being excluded or treated differently, social isolation. Parents may fear that a mental health label or diagnosis will limit the choices for their child eg not getting in to school of their choice Families might have different views or perspectives from educators about the causes and nature of a child’s difficulty Childs Perspective: As Lyn mentioned, Young children are more likely to show us they are having social emotional difficulties when we see changes in their behaviour/strong emotions Wont ask for help directly – parents and educators are child’s advocate Children may be struggling with strong feelings eg. blame/guilt/anxiety – our role is to help with regulating those strong feelings Key Message (conclusion): With time, understanding and focus on strengthening supportive communication and relationship building, educators are able to influence in a positive way, many of barriers to help seeking.
• #11: (see Kerrys suggestions) Add some ideas and then ask for more in the chat
• #12: 8 mins Lyn We might think about the ability to help-seek as an individual capacity or responsibility, however, the environment or culture of settings can play a critical role in opening the door to enable help-seeking.    Having a shared understanding of mental health difficulties – recognising the common signs and symptoms that a child might be experiencing difficulties is important – but needs a planned approach that takes time to establish. This begins with the recognition that young children can experience mental health difficulties – this can be difficult to accept as we often tend to hold on to ideas that childhood is a happy and carefree time. KM resources can provide both staff and families with information about what mental health means and what positive mental health in infants and children looks like and how it is promoted is a good starting point. From there, information about the common signs and symptoms can help to identify when adults might need to do something. It will be much easier to have a conversation about getting some help if there have been previous conversations or information shared about positive mental health.  The KM BETLS tool can be a really helpful way for staff to gather very specific information to share with families to open up a conversation. Intervening early when the first signs appear will be important – it’s easier to respond to quickly when the concerns are smaller and it’s less likely to have an impact on the child’s development if it’s caught early (eg a child being able to cope with the day to day demands of the setting, engage in play and activities, develop social connections with children and adults).  (Sophie talks about this in the video 1.1  – “get involved early, it’s a time when you can quite easily shift children off a pathway where they may be heading down, the pathway towards the mental health difficulties. But it’s a time when a little bit of change, a little bit of tweaking in the way parents and carers and early childhood educators are working and interacting with a child, can lead to some really quite different ways that the child might react and respond”) – so we can feel hopeful in our conversations with parents and carers.   So it’s clear that the way in which staff build a safe and trusting environment for children and parents to seek help is critical. This can include small acts where children and families get a sense that it’s ok to ask for help – ok to make mistakes and be uncertain of things. Sometimes children and parents may test out whether it’s safe to seek help – eg parents may make a vague comment or ask a question in a way that doesn’t really appear to be about a concern. How the staff member responds will determine whether they can ask again or feel like they can trust the service to share their concerns more.   Having clear policies and processes that outline to both staff and parents things like:  how the service can help families, who to talk to about concerns, when good times might be, variety of ways to make contact (could include phone or email as that can be less confronting than face to face in the first instance) accompanied by consistent and visible messages that this is a place of support for the child and family.  Finding ways to simply this information for children and also tailored to make sense to the families in the community (eg use of parent-friendly language, translated information) will not only make the information accessible but also send a message that the service is genuine in their efforts to reach out and provide support. This could also include making connections with other requirements like the Strategic Inclusion Plan http://www.idfm.org.au/strategic-inclusion-plan to develop a specific plan to be “inclusion ready”.   Having boundaries around the support that can be provided by the service staff is also important and will work best when the service is supported within the community by health and community services and agencies. This means that a collaborative approach can be taken to supporting the child and family where professionals have clear roles and the family understands those roles. Mapping out the services and health professionals in the local community before needing to make a referral can be helpful. The local Primary Health Network can be good place to start with this mapping (link to the PHN map: http://www.health.gov.au/internet/main/publishing.nsf/content/phn-locator).  Sometimes it can take time for appointments so knowing about waiting lists and options can help staff support families to persevere and have realistic expectations. Promoting information about local service providers to all families can also ensure that families can make their own decisions about seeking help outside of the service if they want to. 
• #13: Kerry On screen while Kerry is talking Insert video snippet Introduction This next part of webinar will look at some of those supportive communication skills and strategies for building respectful and collaborative relationships.   It is worthwhile remembering that Early childhood services are in an ideal position to support children who may be experiencing mental health difficulties (and their families), as they work closely with children and families on a daily basis.  This provides many opportunities for collaboration with families.   Also we may need to remind ourselves that we do not need to work in isolation. Educators are part of a broader community and are one important component in the system.  So we may ask ourselves, how do I interact and what’s the interface between me and all the other services in my community?    There are also some very good communication and other tools that KidsMatter offer that can assist educators when they need to have a tricky or challenging conversation with parents about a child’s behavior or MH difficulty.   Ways to respond: Being in tune and Shared care   We talked about being “in tune” with parents and how important this is…There is a good example of this in the KidsMatter C4 Topic 4 Video 4.2; Eg a parent might come along and say, to you as an educator “My child’s been having nightmares every night for a week.  Is there anything happening during the day here at the education setting that’s going on?”  The educator might then might be able to just listen to the parent, hear what worries are, think about what’s happening for the child in the setting, and then perhaps even observe the child more closely for a little while and then get back together with the parent and say, “Yes”, or “No… Well, let’s think about this together”, and then think about what the next steps might be, to perhaps talk to a GP, or a maternal and child health nurse or a mental health professional. Care Plan:“So when a child has a mental health diagnosis it’s important that the partnership between the early childhood professionals and the parents, come up with some sort of shared plan about how they’re going to help the child manage their everyday life.  And it’s important that every adult who has contact with the child in any setting understands what is happening for the child so that they can help them manage things.  The combined and shared approach will help the child recover more quickly from their mental health problem.” Self awareness:We also need to be “in tune” with our own feelings and triggers, be aware of what may activate strong feelings in ourselves and what might assist us to prepare and self-regulate in challenging situations Professional Boundaries:We need to be clear about the difference between what educators they can do within the context of their early childhood professional expertise, and what they can’t do, and that can be difficult at times. Having conversations about this as team and being confident about when to refer on to others is part of our professional responsibilities (Link in CHAT to Health and Communities tools) Following through with parents and maintaining confidentiality and privacy:As educators we need to take lead with parents in following up after a discussion about MH difficulties and provide feedback about where things are at if we have said we will followup about something eg a followup meeting; get back to parent with information; support parent to access health/community professional etcBeing aware of service policies and procedures around confidentiality. The KidsMatter resource: Connecting with Families elearning is a really good place to learn more about tuning in to self and others in order to manage challenging conversations and overcome some of barriers we talked about (link in CHAT) Also the videos and PL topics and tools in C4 section of website (link in CHAT)   Stop Reflect Act Brief Intro to model (Link in CHAT) - Stop Reflect Act (SRA) is a communication focused framework that can be very helpful during conversations or interactions with families, especially more challenging conversations. SRA assists us to support and hear a parent. - You can learn more about this by watching the KidsMatter PL video- Lets have a look at an example on video of how it can be used: Show Video 3.4 (C3 Topic 3): (3-4 mins) – example with educator and parent (Petra and Simon) Discussion around ways educators have used/could use SRA in their services to assist with help seeking   Key Messages: Check our KM tools to assist with supporting conversations with families Build in opportunities for practice, sharing experiences and reflection as team
• #14: Show Video 3.4 (C3 Topic 3): (3-4 mins) – example with educator and parent (Petra and Simon) Video must be played from the X drive, link is below. Video snippet: K:\Communications\Presentations & Conferences\webinars-presentations\Webinars_2017\Help me seek help webinar\video
• #15: This is from the new participant workbook p9 https://www.kidsmatter.edu.au/sites/default/files/public/KMEC%20KidsMatter%20Participants%20Workbook%20C3T3-2017.PDF
• #16: 5 min All on screen Spoke earlier about how webinars are great for professional learning … facilitated learning, opportunities for reflection and chance to chat. … you might like to grow your learning into action and whole of setting change using this post-webinar reflection. Share your first thoughts now! --- links to the after the webinar blog
• #17: 3 min - Amelia Remember the KidsMatter professional learning topics from today were …. If you are implementing KidsMatter at your next check in with the KidsMatter team let us know you attended and share your thoughts and actions. Final take away message. (30 seconds or less) You will receive a certificate for attending today, however to be identified as completing the professional learning topics … a few more steps. Be registered as a KidsMatter participants … [link to start the experience] Learn and grow from knowledge acquired or deepened today … turn learning into action … and let us know.
• #18: 1 min - Amelia Officially start the KidsMatter experience after the event check out the link in the Thank you What next …