Child mental health implementation strategies – part one

The strengths, skills, knowledge and values that children develop throughout their lives can provide an important foundation for reducing the impact of the problems they face. Likewise, a practitioner’s professional training and practice experience provide them with ideas, tools, techniques and strategies that can prove highly useful when working with children and families. 

A key practice challenge, then, is to create a therapeutic context that draws on the resourcefulness of both children and practitioners. 

This two-part series explores how practitioners can honour children’s creativity and know-how, without diminishing their own expertise. It considers how practitioners can share their practice wisdom with children without inadvertently disempowering them. 

In this episode, we talk with experienced child psychologists Angela Coppi, Jane Walch and Sara McLean about how they navigate these practice challenges. We also speak with Jess and Emi, two of Emerging Minds’ Child and Family Partners, who have contributed to the development of our Practice strategies suite of online courses. Jess and Emi share their lived experience of working with practitioners in relation to their children’s mental health and wellbeing. 

In this episode you will learn:

• Practices for encouraging children to collaborate (02:23). 
• The importance of drawing on children’s creativity and interests in when developing interventions with children (09:35).
• How contributing to the development of tools and ideas to support their wellbeing can benefit children (14:58).

Further information and resources:

Online course: Practice strategies for implementation

Podcast: Child mental health implementation strategies – part two