#Watchme to trial

immunisation) with health professionals such as General Practitioners (GPs) and Child and Family Health Nurses (CFHN). Watch Me Grow – Electronic Platform (WMG-E) is an example of one such innovative platform that can help health services reach vulnerable families in their homes, in the community, or during opportunistic contacts (e.g. When in-person consultations closed, health organizations embraced technology and offered online services to continue providing access to services. This combination of circumstances, substantially reduced access to resources for vulnerable families during the pandemic.

These risks were intensified by the closure of in-person preventative and health promotion programs, such as child wellbeing checks. Specifically, families from priority populations such as culturally and linguistically diverse (CALD) as well as from regional and rural communities (i.e., areas that lie beyond the major cities) are particularly likely to experience health care inequality. Further, parental mental health difficulties consequent to the pandemic can adversely impact children’s development and wellbeing. In Australia, for example, despite the low infection rates and consequent adverse social and economic impact, approximately 1.6 million families experienced financial hardship due to COVID-19 associated job losses and financial stress, resulting in an extra 780,000 Australian children living in families experiencing employment stress.

#Watchme to trial

1.0, Version 3.1) was registered with ANZCTR (registration number: ACTRN12621000766819) on July 21st, 2021 and reporting of the trial results will be according to recommendations in the CONSORT Statement.ĭue to the COVID-19 pandemic, families, particularly those from disadvantaged backgrounds experienced significant psychosocial stress and mental health challenges. If effective, digital solutions such as WMG-E to engage and empower parents alongside a service navigator for vulnerable families needing additional support, will have significant practice and policy implications in the pandemic/post pandemic period. Using WMG-E is expected to: normalise and de-stigmatise mental health and psychosocial screening increase parental engagement and service use and result in the early identification and management of child developmental needs, parental mental health, and family psychosocial needs. A mixed methods implementation evaluation will be completed, with semi-structured interviews to ascertain the acceptability, feasibility and impact of the WMG-E platform and service navigator. Three hundred parents/carers of children aged 6 months to 3 years (recruited from a culturally diverse, or rural/regional site) will be randomly allocated to the ‘care-as-usual’ or ‘intervention’ group.

Using an RCT we will determine: (1) parental engagement with developmental surveillance (2) access to services for those with mental health and social care needs and (3) uptake of service recommendations. In contrast, the intervention group will receive continuity of care, with additional in-person assessment and ‘warm hand over’ by a ‘service navigator’ to ensure their needs are met. Children and families needing additional assessments and supports will be electronically directed to relevant resources in the ‘care-as-usual’ group. This Randomised Controlled Trial (RCT) aims to expand WMG-E as a digital navigation tool by also incorporating parents’ mental health and psychosocial needs. WMG-E was developed to monitor child development and guide parents towards more detailed assessments when risk is identified. Watch Me Grow- Electronic (WMG-E) – developmental surveillance platform- exemplifies one such service. The increased mental health and psychosocial needs were compounded by the closure of in-person preventive and health promotion programs resulting in health organisations embracing technology and online services.

This has adversely impacted child development and wellbeing, particularly for children from priority populations (culturally and linguistically diverse (CALD) and rural/regional communities) who are at an already increased risk of health inequality. The COVID-19 pandemic and the associated economic recession has increased parental psychosocial stress and mental health challenges.