Healthy Kids Check

[Fifth]

Most of you have probably heard about the Healthy Kids Check, whereby three-year-olds will be screened for early signs of mental illness.

I think it's a horrible idea. I think it's dangerous to label children at such a young age, especially when so many children go through quirky stages yet grow up to be perfectly sane, functional adults. For instance, the checklist includes behaviour such as 'sleeping with the light on, temper tantrums or extreme shyness.' They're three years old ffs.

Anyway, my understanding was that the scheme would be voluntary.

Child protection experts are now calling for home visits to screen for domestic problems to avoid misdiagnosis.

My concern is that the scheme will not be voluntary. The 'problem' households would be the last to volunteer to a home inspection, so the purpose would be defeated, would it not?

Goodbye civil liberties, hello nanny state!

I'm curious to hear the opinion of others.

CHILD protection experts want the government's mental health screening program for three-year-olds to include home visits to check for family problems such as domestic violence, drug and alcohol problems and neglect.

The Australian Childhood Foundation has called for broader screening that will consider the home life of young children in a bid to avoid behavioural problems sparked by domestic conflict being labelled mental illness.

It comes after The Sunday Age last week revealed the federal government's Healthy Kids Check will screen three-year-olds for early signs of mental disorders, using a checklist that will include behaviour such as sleeping with the light on, temper tantrums or extreme shyness.
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The program is expected to identify more than 27,000 preschoolers who may require further support from a psychologist or paediatrician. The voluntary scheme has caused heated debate, with the government claiming it will reduce rates of mental illness - 50 per cent of which start in childhood - but has some mental health professionals fearing it will pathologise normal behaviour and lead to misdiagnosis.

''We've seen kids where the initial diagnosis by a GP or a psychologist and the symptoms that they're showing might look like mental health problems - they might be crying, their behaviour's erratic or they're not sleeping - but the medical professional hasn't identified that abuse has happened in that child's life or there's financial pressure because a parent's lost a job or there's family violence and drug and alcohol problems,'' said Joe Tucci, chief executive of the Australian Childhood Foundation.

Mr Tucci said the Healthy Kids Check was a good opportunity to intervene early when children were being placed at risk, but simply asking parents questions about their child's behaviour might not tell the whole story.

''What parent is going to say to their GP, 'my child's behaving like this because there's violence at home'? A one-off test is context neutral, it doesn't give you the total picture of what's happening in the family … whether there are hidden problems that a child's experiencing.'' Ideally, Mr Tucci said, the checks would pull together information from the family and agencies including school, police, child protection and housing services, to give a complete picture.

http://www.theage.com.au/national/health/home-visits-urged-for-checks-on-kids-20120616-20h4e.html

 

[weg]

From what I read I didn't get the impression that the idea was to 'nab' bad parents (depts. know who the 'bad' parents are).

I think it's just another misguided, financially wasteful, birdbrained (stupid) idea, cheaply put together for the sole purpose of being seen to be proactive.

The government gets told time and time again what needs to be done with both child health and mental health but don't listen.

Personally I don't know how one can diagnose mental illness in a 3 year old?? You'd have to be bl00dy good.

Agree, that check list is silly. Must be ALL kids are mentally unwell :O.

 

[Dazz]

Psycho psychologists and psycho psychiatrists running the front end of the show and lawyers running the back end of the show.

When, oh when, will someone normal stand up to these "experts" and bring them back to reality ??

 

[evan1875]

you left 'psycho' in front of the lawyers.. oh i see..

 

[dan c]

Most of you have probably heard about the Healthy Kids Check, whereby three-year-olds will be screened for early signs of mental illness.

My wife (a psychologist) told me about this last night, and she is absolutley horrified by it, for a number of reasons.

Firstly, it will be GP's (not mental health professionals) doing the screening. Secondly, three years of age is a ridiculously young age to be 'screening' for this type of stuff.

And thirdly, it would be compulsory, not voluntary.

So you have people who are not experts, screening kids who are too young for illnesses that they may or may not have. And the parents have no say at all.

 

[dan c]

Psycho psychologists and psycho psychiatrists running the front end of the show and lawyers running the back end of the show.

When, oh when, will someone normal stand up to these "experts" and bring them back to reality ??

I think you'll find that the psychologists in public practice would think this is a waste of money and a dumb idea. These type of ideas usually come from academia or government departments.

It hasn't been thought through. If a three year old is diagnosed with a mental illness, what then? Is a psychologist going to offer therapy? The parents would have to be involved, and if a three year old has a mental illness, you could bet pounds to peanuts that the parents have something to do with this. What does the psychologist do then?

 

[weg]

I think you'll find that the psychologists in public practice would think this is a waste of money and a dumb idea. These type of ideas usually come from academia or government departments.

Agree it would come from academia and non clinical government depts.

It hasn't been thought through. If a three year old is diagnosed with a mental illness, what then? Is a psychologist going to offer therapy? The parents would have to be involved, and if a three year old has a mental illness, you could bet pounds to peanuts that the parents have something to do with this. What does the psychologist do then?

Improving funding and structure of existing Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services makes far more sense (it's what the depts role IS afterall ), but I'd guess the idea behind this is probably not about improving child mental health.

Smacks of new GP clinics in areas where they're not needed.

 

[dan c]

Improving funding and structure of existing Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services makes far more sense (it's what the depts role IS afterall ), but I'd guess the idea behind this is probably not about improving child mental health

That's exactly right. CAMS and similar departments are under-resourced and under funded, and the staff in these organisations are often over worked and inexperienced. (Not their fault, it's often their first job out of Uni - and they don't hang around very long, because of the stressful environment, being over-worked and the under resourcing.)

Instead, we get a shiny new idea, which is run through GP's (because everything has to be run through GP's) and which the practising psychologists have a number of practical issues with.

And parents will also have an issue with it, when they realise they MUST take their three year old to a GP to have his /her mental health check.

 

[Peter 14.7]

As a dad I first thought, hey why not ? but I since agree that at three a mental illness is 99% simply growing up. Mental Illness is not dysfunctional family.

My 6 year old daughter often says in response to a "NO" that "this is the worst day of her life". We have also had "you only had me because you wanted a servant" and "I know you (daddy) wanted a boy" All rubbish push button statements designed to elicit a response.

Once she calms down we get "sorry" or " I was angry (at your decision) and wanted to hurt you" then " I love you".

At three, she had morbid fear of the "Moon" as it would "bite her toes"
I would be worried if some gov appointed expert was analysing that comment as mental illness.

Peter 14.7

 

[Spades]

*Shudder* at the thought if 3yr olds deemed with a mental illness,the medications there going to be prescribed.

 

[buster]

The idea is ludicrous, If they are concerned about kid they are given a psychologist evaluation when they start school. My kid was given a test by an idiot psychologist, who didnt know which box to put him in, as he was too singularly focused on his own opinion of what the correct answer. He wasnt smart enough too understand how a deep thinking observant little boy arrived at answer an he considered wrong. As the kid had a different way of looking at things than an educated idiot. I was told he was mentally retarded and needed to go a special school. Which I didnt accept. After consulting with some teachers it was decided to keep him in the regular school and he was given an extra 30 min of tuiton a week in preps at the end of preps although he had made big improvements, he was almost but not quite up to par , so it was decided to repeat preps, since then now in year 3 hasnt looked back and is amongst the top of the class and in some subjects a year ahead. He might not remember how to say or spell words, but he can tell you were any object he has seen is and if it has been moved even after years. The problem was even though he was poor at language reading and maths and needed different methods to understand how it all worked, he was more intelligent than the psychologist.