Search results

Given that the workforce constitutes a principal resource of primary care, appraisal of models of care requires thorough investigation of the health workforce in all Models of Child Health Appraised (MOCHA) countries. This chapter explores this in terms of workforce composition, remuneration, qualifications and training in relation to the needs of children and young people. We have focused on two principal disciplines of primary care; medicine and nursing, with a specific focus on training and skills to care for children in primary care, particularly those with complex care needs, adolescents and vulnerable groups. We found significant disparities in workforce provision and remuneration, in training curricula and in resultant skills of physicians and nurses in European Union and European Economic Area Countries. A lack of overarching standards and recognition of some of the specific needs of children reflected in training of physicians and nurses may lead to suboptimal care for children. There are, of course, many other professions that also contribute to primary care services for children, some of which are discussed in Chapter 15, but we have not had resources to study these to the same detail.

Adolescent mental health is a global concern. There is an urgent need for creative, multimedia interventions reflecting adolescent culture to promote mental health literacy and well-being. This study aims to assess the impact of a film-based intervention on adolescent mental health literacy, well-being and resilience.

A pretest-posttest intervention with a multi-methods evaluation was used. A convenience sample of ten schools facilitated students aged 15–17 years to engage in an online intervention (film, post-film discussion, well-being Webinar). Participants completed surveys on well-being, resilience, stigma, mental health knowledge and help-seeking. Five teachers who facilitated the intervention participated in post-implementation interviews or provided a written submission. Analysis included paired-t-test and effect size calculation and thematic analysis.

Matched pretest-posttest data were available on 101 participants. There were significant increases in well-being, personal resilience and help-seeking attitudes for personal/emotional problems, and suicidal ideation. Participants’ free-text comments suggested the intervention was well-received, encouraging them to speak more openly about mental health. Teachers similarly endorsed the intervention, especially the focus on resilience.

Intinn shows promise in improving adolescents’ mental health literacy and well-being. Film-based interventions may encourage adolescents to seek professional help for their mental health, thus facilitating early intervention.

The purpose of this paper is to make the case for bringing compassion to students in educational settings, preschool through graduate school (PK-20).

First, the author defines what is meant by “compassion” and differentiates it from the related constructs. Next, the author discusses the importance of bringing compassion into education, thinking specifically about preschool, K-12 (elementary and middle school/junior high/high school), college students, and graduate students (e.g. law, medical, nurses, counselors and therapists-in-training). The author then reviews the scant empirical literature on compassion in education and makes recommendations for future research. In the final section, the author makes specific and practical recommendations for the classroom (e.g. how to teach and evaluate compassion in PK-20).

While there is a fair amount of research on compassion with college students, and specifically regarding compassion for oneself, as the author reviews in this paper, the field is wide open in terms of empirical research with other students and examining other forms of compassion.

This is not a formal review or meta-analysis.

This paper will be a useful resource for teachers and those interested in PK-20 education.

This paper highlights the problems and opportunities for bringing compassion into education settings.

To date, no review of compassion in PK-20 exists.

Improvements in neonatal and paediatric care mean that many children with complex care needs (CCNs) now survive into adulthood. This cohort of children places great challenges on health and social care delivery in the community: they require dynamic and responsive health and social care over a long period of time; they require organisational and delivery coordination functions; and health issues such as minor illnesses, normally presented to primary care, must be addressed in the context of the complex health issues. Their clinical presentation may challenge local care management. The project explored the interface between primary care and specialised health services and found that it is not easily navigated by children with CCNs and their families across the European Union and the European Economic Area countries. We described the referral-discharge interface, the management of a child with CCNs at the acute–community interface, social care, nursing preparedness for practice and the experiences of the child and family in all Models of Child Health Appraised countries. We investigated data integration and the presence of validated standards of care, including governance and co-creation of care. A separate enquiry was conducted into how care is accessed for children with enduring mental health disorders. This included the level of parental involvement and the presence of multidisciplinary teams in their care. For all children with CCNs, we found wide variation in access to, and governance of, care. Effective communication between the child, family and health services remains challenging, often with fragmentation of care delivery across the health and social care sector and limited service availability.

Models of Child Health Appraised (MOCHA) defines school health services (SHSs) as those that exist due to a formal arrangement between educational institutions and primary health care. SHSs are unique in that they are designed exclusively to address the needs of children and adolescents in this age group and setting.

We investigated SHSs have been provided to schools and how they contribute to primary healthcare services for school children. We did this by mapping the national school health systems against the standards of the World Health Organization, and against a framework measuring the strength of primary care, adapting this from an existing, adult-focused framework.

We found that all but two countries in the European Union and European Economic Area have SHSs. There, however, remains a need for much greater investment in the professional workforce to run the services, including training to ensure appropriateness and acceptability to young people. Greater collaboration between SHSs and primary care services would lead to better coordination and the potential for better health (and educational) outcomes. Involving young people and families in the design of SHSs and as participants in its outputs would also improve school health.

Primary care (PC) is a strong determinant of overall health care. Children make up around a fifth of the population of the European Union and European Economic Area and have their own needs and uptake of PC. However, there is little research into how well PC services address their needs. There are large differences in childhood mortality and morbidity patterns in the EU and EEA countries, and there has been a major epidemiological shift in the past half century from predominantly communicable disease, to non-communicable diseases presenting and increasingly managed in PC. This increase in multifactorial morbidities, such as obesity and learning disability, has led to the need for PC systems to adapt to accommodate these changes. Europe presents a challenging picture of unexplained variation in health care delivery and style and of children’s different health experiences and health-related behaviour. The Models of Child Health Appraised (MOCHA) project aimed to describe the PC systems in detail, analyse their components and appraise them from a number of different viewpoints, including professional, public, political and economic lenses. It did this through nine work packages supported by a core management team, and a network of national agents, individuals in each MOCHA country who had the expertise in research and knowledge of their national health care system to answer a wide range of questions posed by the MOCHA scientific teams.