1. Introduction
The imperative for promoting the wellbeing of children and preventing mental illness is clear from a moral, social, and economic perspective.
The imperative for promoting the wellbeing of children and preventing mental illness is clear from a moral, social, and economic perspective.
Until now, Australia has not had a national strategy to guide action for supporting children’s mental health and wellbeing. We currently have a mental health system that focuses on specialist intervention rather than prevention and early intervention, and on adults and adolescents rather than children. In fact, for children under 12 years of age, there is no real ‘system’ of affordable, integrated care, delivered on the basis of need. Instead, there is a fragmented assortment of programs, service offerings, inconsistent sources of resources (that are not necessarily evidence-based), siloed professionals in private practice, alongside inequity in access due to a family’s geographical and financial circumstances.
This Strategy aims to address these issues by mapping the minimum requirements for an effective system of care for children. It also aims to move the language of child mental health and wellbeing away from a narrow view of pathology and diagnostic categories towards a continuum (see 2.2. Wellbeing continuum). This is mirrored in the need to move towards needs-based access to services and to ensure equity in all systems. Finally, this Strategy aims to create a new, shared understanding of the roles of families, communities, services, and educators in promoting and supporting child mental health and wellbeing. This includes the need for all involved to actively listen to, and respect, children’s voices in their own care decisions.
A particular characteristic of working with children and families is that service providers come from a range of sectors including health, education, family services, and NGOs; and from across jurisdictional contexts, including local government (immunisation, maternal and child health), state (clinical mental health, educational supports) and federal (childcare, primary care). The onus of navigating these complexities should not sit with the child and their family. This Strategy seeks to provide some guidance on what is required to simplify the experience of connecting with supports when they are needed.
Good mental wellbeing means that children are able to feel safe, happy, heard, and supported, and have meaningful, loving connections with family, friends, and community.
The importance of family and community is emphasised throughout this Strategy due to the central role that parents and carerse play in the lives of children. A secure relationship with at least one primary caregiver is required for a child’s sense of belonging and their healthy social and emotional development, and so we adopt a broad definition of family that recognises that all families are different and a range of people can care for and support a child.
While families are central to optimal child development, many families are subject to structural disadvantage. This is a consequence of social and economic policies that fail to adequately address unemployment, poverty, educational attainment, racism and discrimination, and limit access to healthcare and other financial and social supports. This disadvantage may be further exacerbated by geographical location and by significant collective trauma as a consequence of domestic, sexual and family violence, forced migration, or forcible removal of children from their family and culture of origin. In building this Strategy (section 1.2), we have sought to include the views of communities that face such disadvantage.
The Strategy also takes into account the broader contexts where children live, learn, play, and grow, and that not all children are equal in this regard. The proposed actions are designed to promote wellbeing and resilience at the family and community level, ensure effective supports are accessible for both parents and children who are struggling, and facilitate recovery when children or family are unwell.
