Dr. Karen McLean
Date: 18 February 2020 Location: Royal Children’s Hospital, Melbourne
Please Note: OPEN are currently in the process of organising for Dr. McLean to deliver her findings to the child and family services sector – keep an eye on the OPEN News and the OPEN Portal for details!
Dr. Karen McLean is a paediatrician who has previously worked to implement the Pathway to Good Health Clinic at the Royal Children’s Hospital. Pathway to Good Health clinics are DHHS funded specialist clinics led by a paediatrician (and involving a multidisciplinary assessment team) that provide comprehensive health assessments for children entering out-of-home care.
Dr. McLean undertook her PhD with the Murdoch Children’s Research Institute and the University of Melbourne Department of Paediatrics from 2017 to 2020. Her research was supported by OPEN and CFECFW through a Learning System Grant in 2017-18. The Learning System grant helped to fund the data linkage study that made up the third part of her research.
There are a number of reasons that ensuring high quality healthcare for children in out-of-home care is so important and challenging. Children are not only more likely to be diagnosed with health issues than the average population, but they are also less likely to receive consistent medical care as they move between placements and homes. This inconsistency effects their development and wellbeing not just in childhood, but into their adult years as well.
In response to this issue, the Australian Government developed the National Clinical Assessment Framework for Children and Young People in Out-of-Home Care (2011).
Dr McLean wanted to assess how well the standards outlined by this framework were being met for Victorian children, focusing on two research questions:
and
To answer these questions Dr. McLean used a mixed methods approach, undertaking three different studies:
Across the three studies Dr. McLean identified that there are currently a number of barriers to these children receiving timely healthcare. Many of these were related to delays, inflexibility, and a lack of coordinated support in either child protection systems or healthcare systems.
She also found, however, that there are a number of factors that can enable children in care to receive timely medical treatment. More timely medical treatment occurs when carers received support in navigating difficult systems, and where flexible and accessible medical services were available. Carers themselves were also an enabling factor in their determination to ensure that children received the medical care they needed.
Dr. McLean’s findings reveal a clear need to develop programs and policies that can improve outcomes for these children.
We need to ask:
There is also more evidence that needs to be gathered to better understand this topic (especially with adolescents) and what are effective and feasible interventions or system changes.
