Sidney Stevens Hi, there, my name is  Sidney Stevens. I'm a Senior Researcher   with The Royal Children's Hospital and  Murdoch Children's Research Institute   in Melbourne. And I’m here to talk to  you today about our Clinical Practice   Guidelines for Anxiety in Children and Young  People. And you might’ve heard my colleague,   Professor David Coghill, talk you through a  lot of the clinical aspects of that guideline,   but I’m talking to you in this session  specifically about a – the Guide for   Parents and Carers and Supporters of  Children and Young People with Anxiety. This is a part of a development that I’m  particularly proud of. I think it’s something   that is incredibly important. As we know,  patients and their parents and their families   play an incredibly important role in their own  care and we knew that we needed something that   was going to walk them through what was  in the guideline. The guideline itself is   86 pages and not appropriate to be giving  to families or anyone that’s not really a   Clinician and so, this serves as a, sort  of, adaptation of the guideline in that. You can scan the QR code to follow along in the  booklet, if you’d like. And just a few notes.   As I talk about ‘family’ in this session, I  think I’m using it to refer to the family unit,   which includes caregivers, support people  and those who do not have a direct caring   relationship, so siblings or anyone else that  lives in the home with the child. And it’s   important – incredibly important ecosystem,  the family and all the support people that   are the scaffolding around a child as they  are experiencing mental health disorders.   And also important to note that there might  be situations where family involvement or   inclusion of a certain family member is not  appropriate in a child’s care. For example,   in situations of family violence or perhaps  other sorts of violence in the home,   it might not be appropriate to do that and  clinical decisions should be made around that. So, I had a look at our guideline. These are  directly from the Clinical Practice Guideline   about specific recommendations within the  guideline that note about families. So,   explaining to individuals and their caregivers  and their families different aspects of their   care. Discuss different parts of the – their,  you know, family attitudes about mental health,   family beliefs and whether family members  share those same beliefs are really,   really important in decision-making around  types of care or treatments for anxiety. And then, also, just number 3.5, “Clinicians  should work closely with families and their   caregivers to engage in treatment plans,  regardless of what kind of treatment is being   chosen.” These are not the only recommendations  within the guideline that have to do with families   or caregivers or that sort of support system, but  I think these are the main bits. I actually had a   go at searching ‘family’ in the guideline and  it shows up 93 times in the Clinical Practice   Guideline. So, it’s an incredibly important  part of caring for a child with anxiety. We – the major touchpoints for engaging  families, I was going to try to have some,   sort of, cool whooshing thing coming into  this, but – and, sort of, say, you know,   “This is the most important step in  involving a family.” And then it all,   sort of, started to morph into, no, that’s  the most important one, no, that’s the most   important one. They’re all important. Major  touchpoints for engaging family is throughout   the entire treatment of a family, of a child  and their family and their support system. From identification, which is that, you know,  engaging families can lead or – lead to earlier   identification, earlier assessment, care  planning, more access to treatment and   better outcomes for treatment. And then  reviewing and monitoring, you know,   that is incredibly – because the family is the  one that’s doing that – most of that reviewing   and monitoring. And so, all of these different  touchpoints are really, really important. Now, when we wrote this guideline, we knew  that we would need some sort of resource   for families in terms of providing  an educational resource and also,   just a resource so that families knew  what to expect. We talk a lot about,   you know, informed consumers and that, sort of,  informed consumer loop, leading to better care.   And we knew that this was a really, really  important part of releasing this guideline,   was having a resource for families. We then went  about in trying to find existing resources to   do that. Anxiety is quite common. There are a  lot of resources in the community about that,   really, really great resources from Beyond  Blue and Black Dog Institute in Australia and   lots across the rest of the world for really,  really good anxiety treatment and management. However, what we discovered was there was this  missing middle in terms of it – these resources   will talk about identification, maybe go into  assessment and then how to manage anxiety at   home. Which is really, really great for children  with very mild and moderate anxiety. However,   when it starts to affect their life, it goes  further into needing that professional help   and needing help from a Clinician through the  care planning and treatment and that reviewing   and monitoring. So, we found that actually, a lot  of resources didn’t have those – didn’t have the   really important information about those steps  and really, information that can help parents   and carers, supporters, get the care they need  for their children. And it all comes down to   psychoeducation. So, this really – this resource  is really a psychoeducation resource for families   in, sort of, having that conversation with them  about what is important in care for anxiety. So, we endeavoured to create a resource that  was just like a clinical practice guideline,   hits those boxes of trustworthy,  useable and reliable. Those were,   sort of, the main pillars of an evidence-based  clinical practice guideline that we strive for,   and this was something that we really wanted  to recreate for this resource. However,   trustworthy and useable and reliable might come  from different places as a consumer versus a   Clinician. For a Clinician, they want to know that  it is evidence-based. They want to know that it is   rigorously produced and that it, you know, has  this person involved and that person involved,   or it has the latest research. For parents,  I think they want to know that it’s truthful,   they want to know that it is something that  can help their child and so, in creating this,   we really wanted to make sure that  we were hitting all of those boxes. So, we went and worked with a group of lived  experience advisors, which are people that have   lived experience of anxiety, which it compiled  a group of people that some were children   that had experienced anxiety as children and  young people. Perhaps they were at The Royal   Children’s Hospital during a severe episode of  care and had care for The Children’s Hospital.   And we also had a group that was parents of  children that experience anxiety. And so,   it was really important that we had the  balance of that and they really helped   to inform what this guide ended up looking  like. And it really was a true co-design. So, we gave them the Clinical Practice Guideline,  which again, is 86 pages, and this group of   15 lived experience advisors helped us to  identify what was important to a family member,   what would be important to a child in, sort of,  their care and the different parts of that. It   also is directly informed by this guideline, so it  is truthful, it is evidence-based, in a different   way that you might – than you might expect. And  we ended up with this really, really beautiful   resource that is, again, trustworthy, useable,  reliable. We did it all in plain language,   which as a Researcher, it was quite difficult to  try and write in plain language because it’s just   a different type of writing. And so, it was really  a learning process for a lot of us and we had   a really great group of people to do this and a  really, really significant contribution from them. And again, contributions from everyone in –  across the development of this guideline. It   really does take a village through for  18 months of the guideline development,   another six months to create this new resource  and, you know, lots of these people have been   involved in different stages and it really,  really, really is good for us. And we’re very,   very lucky to be supported by The Royal Children’s  Hospital Foundation, and so, thank you to that. Thank you for your time.