Family day care educators : an exploration of their understanding and experiences promoting children\u27s social and emotional wellbeing

This study aimed to explore family day care (FDC) educators&rsquo; knowledge of child social and emotional wellbeing and mental health problems, the strategies used to promote children&rsquo;s wellbeing, and barriers and opportunities for promoting children&rsquo;s social and emotional wellbeing. Thirteen FDC educators participated in individual semi-structured interviews. FDC educators were more comfortable defining children&rsquo;s social and emotional wellbeing than they were in identifying causes and early signs of mental health problems. Strategies used to promote children&rsquo;s mental health were largely informal and dependent on educator skills and capacities rather than a systematic scheme-wide approach. Common barriers to mental health promotion were limited financial resources, a need for more training and hesitance raising child mental health issues with parents. There is a need to build FDC educators&rsquo; knowledge of child social and emotional wellbeing and for tailored mental health promotion strategies in FDC.<br /

Creating change in government to address the social determinants of health: how can efforts be improved?

Background - The evidence base for the impact of social determinants of health has been strengthened considerably in the last decade. Increasingly, the public health field is using this as a foundation for arguments and actions to change government policies. The Health in All Policies (HiAP) approach, alongside recommendations from the 2010 Marmot Review into health inequalities in the UK (which we refer to as the ‘Fairness Agenda’), go beyond advocating for the redesign of individual policies, to shaping the government structures and processes that facilitate the implementation of these policies. In doing so, public health is drawing on recent trends in public policy towards ‘joined up government’, where greater integration is sought between government departments, agencies and actors outside of government. Methods - In this paper we provide a meta-synthesis of the empirical public policy research into joined up government, drawing out characteristics associated with successful joined up initiatives. - We use this thematic synthesis as a basis for comparing and contrasting emerging public health interventions concerned with joined-up action across government. Results - We find that HiAP and the Fairness Agenda exhibit some of the characteristics associated with successful joined up initiatives, however they also utilise ‘change instruments’ that have been found to be ineffective. Moreover, we find that – like many joined up initiatives – there is room for improvement in the alignment between the goals of the interventions and their design. Conclusion - Drawing on public policy studies, we recommend a number of strategies to increase the efficacy of current interventions. More broadly, we argue that up-stream interventions need to be ‘fit-for-purpose’, and cannot be easily replicated from one context to the next

‘We Don't do Measure and Quotes’: How Agency Responses Criminalise and Endanger the Safety of Children Missing in Care in New South Wales, Australia

This article presents qualitative data from interviews with 46 welfare and justiceprofessionals to examine the criminalisation of children who go missing within the Out-Of-Home-Care (OOHC) residential environment. Participants had specific experience with children living in residential facilities, either through the direct provision of care services, the development of OOHC policy initiatives or through their role as law enforcement, legal or justice personnel. The research found that agency practices, which were designed to protect children, actually serve to conflate going missing with criminality, accelerating children's involvement in the justice system and ultimately endangering children's safety