02 May 2023
Safer Families Centre of Research Excellence is offering a number of free educational opportunities for healthcare providers.
Motivational Interviewing Strategies to address domestic violence workshop
This online workshop, on Wednesday, 10 May, from 8.30am to 10am, aims to enhance your use of motivational interviewing strategies in consultations with people using or experiencing domestic violence.
Find out more / register
Pivoting to the perpetrator: How to engage with patients who use DFV
This online workshop, on Wednesday, 31 May, from 9am to 10.30am, aims to enhance your confidence to safely engage with people who use violence.
Find out more / register
Identifying and Responding to Child Abuse and Neglect e-learning module
This 90-minute e-learning module is free for GPs and primary care staff. It discusses the nature, prevalence and impact of child abuse and neglect, and outlines safe and appropriate response pathways for the children and their families, including when reporting is mandated. The module will assist you in identifying strategies to provide ongoing support to the child and family following initial first line response and illustrate key challenges in responding to child abuse and neglect within the practice environment.
Access the module
20 April 2023
The COVID lockdowns limited children’s exposure to structured environments such as childcare where they have typically developed their social skills and emotional resilience.
This has resulted in many children presenting with challenging behaviours.
Examples of challenging behaviour include:
- Defiance/ refusing age appropriate requests
- Overly fussy such as difficultly settling
- Hurting self/ others
- Excessively angry when refused their wishes
- Ongoing or frequent emotional outbursts
When to refer?
Challenging behaviour is part of typical development. However, families need support if their child’s behaviour is impacting on family functioning, the child’s engagement in daily tasks and learning environments, or if there are safety concerns.
Some behaviours may be due to an undiagnosed developmental delay (eg social, emotional, communication), disability or trauma.
Where to refer?
- Psychologist or family therapist
- Parent Child Interaction Therapist (PCIT)
- Parenting education program such as Circle of Security or Tuning in to Kids
Find more information
This article was written by members of the ‘Stronger Seeds, Taller Trees’ project which includes professionals from a number of government and non-government organisations in South Western Sydney. The group aims to support GPs working with families to navigate and access timely services when they have a concern about a child’s development.
19 April 2023
A new public awareness campaign is aiming to improve childhood vaccination rates.
Despite maintaining relatively high routine vaccinations among children in Australia during the COVID-19 pandemic, there has been a downward trend in childhood immunisation coverage rates over the past two years, particularly for First Nations children.
The campaign, with the theme ‘one more way you keep them safe’, highlights the importance of vaccinating children according to the National Immunisation Program (NIP) schedule, emphasising that vaccination is just one more of the many things parents and carers can do to keep their kids safe.
The campaign encourages parents and carers to seek information from trusted sources and reassures them about the benefits of childhood vaccination.
Visit the campaign website
22 March 2023
If you’re looking for support in managing your child’s weight, ask your GP for a referral to the Growing Healthy Kids Service, a SWSPHN and South Western Sydney Local Health District partnership which aims to reduce overweight and obesity in children aged two to 17 years.
Through the service, psychologists, dietitians, exercise physiologists, paediatricians, paediatric endocrinologists and social workers, work with the child’s family on a multidisciplinary approach to weight management.
The program offers four to six months of appointments designed around the child’s needs and goals.
Families are offered one of three inter-related pathways:
- An intensive weight management program (six individual and three group sessions), including parent/ child education sessions and multi-disciplinary clinic appointment sessions, and medical assessment.
- A dietitian only service (three clinic appointments and three group sessions), including parent/ child education sessions and a lifestyle assessment.
- An additional endocrinology service is available for those children identified during medical assessment by the GHK paediatrician.
Visit the Growing Health Kids website for the referral criteria.
21 March 2023
General practices are encouraged to take steps to improve childhood immunisation uptake.
In South Western Sydney, the overall childhood immunisation rate is still more than 90 per cent, however it has dropped below 95 per cent in a number of LGAs.
GPs are encouraged to review their clinical software to identify children who are overdue for immunisations and issue recalls.
To do this, you can use the 10A Report walkthrough available on the SWSPHN website.
POLAR is also a useful tool for general practice to identify children who are missing scheduled vaccines at a certain age in your practice. General practices can follow the POLAR Immunisation Walkthrough to identify patients aged one to two years old who may be missing their first dose of MMR (measles, mumps, and rubella) and Meningococcal ACWY.
A wealth of information about the importance childhood immunisation is also available on the SWSPHN website.
Visit this page – Continuous Quality Improvement in Childhood Immunisation
09 March 2023
Registrations are open for The Education Hub’s paediatric health online education program for GPs.
The program includes: monthly live interactive webinars (recordings available); an online chat forum; resources; and feedback to support your practice in paediatric healthcare.
The next live webinar will be held tomorrow (Thursday, 16 March) from 6.30pm to 7.30pm. Dr Rod Phillips will present the webinar: Vascular Birthmarks and Infantile Haemangiomas.
The program costs $275 and all course materials can be accessed until 16 February 2024.
Register for the program
For more information, email education.hub@rch.org.au
09 March 2023
Connecting the Dots for Healthy Beginnings is providing a series of free RACGP-accredited early childhood nutrition webinars which have been developed for health professionals, including general practitioners, nurses and allied health professionals.
Connecting the Dots is a national early childhood nutrition service funded by the Australian Government and delivered in partnership with Karitane and the Healthy Beginnings research team at Sydney Local Health District.
An accredited practising dietitian and child and family health nurse educator or GP will deliver the webinars, including:
- How to support parents with starting solids – Thursday, 30 March, 7pm to 8pm.
Register here
- Supporting children with fussy eating behaviours (case studies) – Wednesday, 12 April, 7pm to 8pm.
Register here
In addition to the professional webinars, the service offers separate parenting webinars which may be of interest to your patients.
Access the parenting webinars
07 March 2023
Multilingualism has been linked with numerous benefits for children and families.
Children may learn multiple languages simultaneously and may show a preference for one language.
Receptive language skills are key in determining if speech pathology intervention is required for multilingual children.
The limited amount of exposure to languages because of the COVID-19 lockdowns may have directly impacted language acquisition, and the trajectory of language development for multilingual children could differ from monolingual children.
Early referral to speech pathology is critical if a child is having difficulty with understanding and following verbal information in their primary language.
Where and how to refer
Resources for Multilingual Homes
Webinar: The Benefits of Multilingualism
Interview: Teaching multiple languages to under fives
Expert in the field of multilingualism
16 February 2023
One in in four children in South Western Sydney are at risk of delayed fine motor skills.
Since COVID-19 lockdowns, many children who had reduced opportunities to attend early childhood education are presenting with delayed skills.
The importance of fine motor skills
Fine motor skills allow children to participate in play, self-care and school-based tasks.
Early intervention services can maximise outcomes for children who may be having difficulty learning these skills.
Fine motor skills include:
- Hand and finger strength
- Hand preference
- Using two hands together
- Hand-eye coordination
- Object and pencil grasp
- Cutting skills
- Drawing and handwriting skills
Screen and refer
Every appointment is an opportunity to screen a child’s fine motor skills.
It is more important than ever to refer to occupational therapy early as waiting times in both public and private services have increased since the COVID-19 lockdowns.
How to identify a fine motor delay
Quick checklist by age
Occupational therapy
Where and how to refer
02 February 2023
The Sydney Children’s Hospitals Network (SCHN) has transitioned to a digital referral system for all new outpatient referrals at Sydney Children’s Hospital Randwick and Children’s Hospital at Westmead.
If you are sending a referral to outpatients at SCHN, please use Consultmed in preference to fax or paper referrals. Create a free and secure account at www.consultmed.co to get started. You will be able to track your referrals and receive advice and guidance regarding the management of your patients.
Find out more
Integrations with practice management software (eg BP, MD) are currently in progress and the SCHN will inform you when this is available. Until then, this digital system offers a streamlined way to refer your patients to SCHN for specialist advice and management.
Every major department at SCHN will be onboarded over the next few weeks.
Download the Quick Reference Guide
Download the Axe the Fax flyer
