Delivering Psychological treatment to children via phone
A set of guiding principles based on recent research with Syrian refugee children
Abstract
Psychologists from Queen Mary University of London, American University of Beirut, Médecins du Monde and John Hopkins University, have created a free online resource for mental health services looking to deliver psychological therapy remotely to children amid the current Covid-19 pandemic.
This guidance document draws on the researchers’ experience adapting an existing psychological treatment to phone delivery for Syrian refugee children living in Lebanon, which they are currently investigating as part of an R2HC funded clinical research study.
Whilst the resource is especially relevant for those working in refugee or other low resource settings, the researchers suggest this guidance can be adopted by children’s mental health services worldwide who are now transitioning to online or phone delivery due to Covid-19.
The resource covers topics such as developing safety protocols and managing risk over the phone, adapting therapy to maintain child engagement and tips to manage specific practical and treatment-related challenges that can arise during therapy.
Whilst the guidance proposes a number of specific solutions to support mental health services transitioning to remote delivery, the researchers outline that is important for each service to adapt these to create protocols appropriate for their specific setting, population, and type of therapy.
This work was supported by the Research for Health in Humanitarian Crises (R2HC) Programme
Citation
Fiona S. McEwen, Tania Bosqui, Nicolas Chehade, Stephanie Saad, Diana Abdul Rahman, Stephanie Skavenski, Laura Murray, Michael Pluess (2020) Delivering Psychological treatment to children via phone: A set of guiding principles based on recent research with Syrian refugee children. Queen Mary University of London
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