Darlington Yvonne, Feeney Judith A, Rixon Kylie
School of Social Work and Applied Human Sciences, University of Queensland, St Lucia, Qld 4072, Australia.
Child Abuse Negl. 2005 Oct;29(10):1085-98. doi: 10.1016/j.chiabu.2005.04.005.
The aim of this paper is to examine some of the factors that facilitate and hinder interagency collaboration between child protection services and mental health services in cases where there is a parent with a mental illness and there are protection concerns for the child(ren). The paper reports on agency practices, worker attitudes and experiences, and barriers to effective collaboration.
A self-administered, cross-sectional survey was developed and distributed via direct mail or via line supervisors to workers in statutory child protection services, adult mental health services, child and youth mental health services, and Suspected Child Abuse and Neglect (SCAN) Teams. There were 232 completed questionnaires returned, with an overall response rate of 21%. Thirty-eight percent of respondents were statutory child protection workers, 39% were adult mental health workers, 16% were child and youth mental health workers, and 4% were SCAN Team medical officers (with 3% missing data).
Analysis revealed that workers were engaging in a moderate amount of interagency contact, but that they were unhappy with the support provided by their agency. Principle components analysis and multivariate analysis of variance (MANOVA) on items assessing attitudes toward other workers identified four factors, which differed in rates of endorsement: inadequate training, positive regard for child protection workers, positive regard for mental health workers, and mutual mistrust (from highest to lowest level of endorsement). The same procedure identified the relative endorsement of five factors extracted from items about potential barriers: inadequate resources, confidentiality, gaps in interagency processes, unrealistic expectations, and professional knowledge domains and boundaries.
Mental health and child protection professionals believe that collaborative practice is necessary; however, their efforts are hindered by a lack of supportive structures and practices at the organizational level.
本文旨在探讨在存在患有精神疾病的家长且儿童面临保护问题的情况下，促进和阻碍儿童保护服务机构与心理健康服务机构之间跨部门合作的一些因素。本文报告了机构实践、工作人员态度和经验以及有效合作的障碍。
设计了一份自填式横断面调查问卷，并通过直邮或经由直属上级分发给法定儿童保护服务机构、成人心理健康服务机构、儿童和青少年心理健康服务机构以及疑似虐待和忽视儿童（SCAN）小组的工作人员。共收回232份完整问卷，总体回复率为21%。38%的受访者是法定儿童保护工作人员，39%是成人心理健康工作人员，16%是儿童和青少年心理健康工作人员，4%是SCAN小组的医务人员（3%数据缺失）。
分析显示，工作人员进行了适度的跨部门接触，但他们对所在机构提供的支持不满意。对评估对其他工作人员态度的项目进行主成分分析和多变量方差分析（MANOVA），确定了四个因素，其认可率有所不同：培训不足、对儿童保护工作人员的积极尊重、对心理健康工作人员的积极尊重以及相互不信任（从最高认可率到最低认可率）。同样的程序确定了从关于潜在障碍的项目中提取的五个因素的相对认可率：资源不足、保密性、跨部门流程中的差距、不切实际的期望以及专业知识领域和界限。
心理健康和儿童保护专业人员认为合作实践是必要的；然而，他们的努力受到组织层面缺乏支持性结构和实践的阻碍。
