Tony Barozzino

Patient navigators: Mapping the route toward accessibility in health care

Children and youth with developmental and mental health conditions require a wide range of clinical supports and social services to improve their quality of life. However, few children and youth are currently able to adequately access these clinical, community and social services, and newcomers or those living in poverty are even further disadvantaged. Patient navigator programs can bridge this gap by facilitating connections to social services, supporting family coping strategies and advocating for patient clinical services. Although there are few paediatric-focused patient navigator programs in the literature, they offer the potential to improve short and long-term health outcomes. As social and clinical services, particularly for developmental and mental health conditions, become increasingly complex and restricted, it is important that physicians and policymakers consider implementing patient navigator programs with a rigorous evaluation framework to improve accessibility and health outcomes. This can ultimately facilitate policymakers in creating more equitable resources in challenging fiscal climates.

Supporting the developmental health of refugee children and youth

The Canadian Government has announced that over 50,000 refugees from the Middle East will be resettled in Canada by 2018. More than one-third of these refugees are expected to be children. The Canadian Paediatric Society has called for the Canadian government to prepare for the influx of these children. This should include addressing developmental, behavioural, and mental health needs. The focus of this paper is the role of paediatricians and family physicians in caring for the developmental health of refugee children, as a means of supporting their developmental and learning potential. The authors suggest the use of EMPOWER (Education, Migration, Parents and Family, Outlook, Words, Experience of Trauma and Resources), a mnemonic checklist they developed for assessing developmental risk factors in refugee children. EMPOWER can be used along with online web resources such as Caring For Kids New to Canada in providing evidence-informed care to these children.

We need psychologists! Paediatr Child Health

Paediatricians are more likely than ever to encounter patients with mental health problems on a daily basis. There is a need for investment in proven treatments, such as psychology-based interventions, for children identified with mental health disorders. There are four main arguments supporting the engagement of psychologists for children with mental health problems: there is clear evidence that psychological interventions can effectively treat a wide range of mental health disorders; many parents and children are more open to exploring psychological therapies rather than medication for mental health problems; psychologists are trained and licensed to perform psychoeducational assessments, which can provide invaluable information about a child’s learning profile, attention problems and overall intelligence; and behaviour problems in children can be prevented or improved through parent-based interventions. The authors’ strongly advocate for the public funding of psychology services – both in collaborative primary care models and in the school setting.