How can mental health practitioners collaborate with child welfare practitioners to improve mental health for young people in out of home care?

Abstract

Young people who grow up in out of home care have higher risk of poor mental health outcomes than peers who grow up with their family-of-origin. Interagency collaboration is an important service-level intervention to improve access to mental healthcare. However, few descriptions of collaboration provide guidance about collaboration between individual practitioners. This substudy aimed to contribute to a larger study-the Ripple project-through exploring the experiences of practitioners working across child welfare and mental health services regarding collaboration in the care of young people; and to identify practices that might enhance collaborative work and improve mental health outcomes. Practitioners from across child welfare and mental health services were purposively sampled and participated in focus groups. Recordings and transcriptions of focus groups were analysed to identify themes within and between groups. A cross-sector expert advisory group was involved in this work. Focus groups were convened with 43 practitioners. We identified four themes during analysis, these were: shared understanding of the history and context of problems; specific skills and practices; self-awareness of workers and carers; and involving and supporting carers. A number of practices were identified that might lead to enhanced collaboration between agencies and across interdisciplinary care teams. Supporting mental health practitioners to adopt these might assist interagency and interdisciplinary working.