Current and Future Uses of Technology and Children’s Mental Health
Goal six of the President’s New Freedom Commission on Mental Health identifies improvements in the use of technology as essential to transforming mental health care. Technology provides myriad opportunities to improve information and services for children’s mental health. Some of the relevant uses of technology include:
- Enabling consumer access to reliable information about mental health
- Broadening access to self-help and social support groups through synchronous and asynchronous communication (online groups, listservs and chatrooms, instant messaging, videoconferencing)
- Integrating mental health services into primary care through shared information, education, screening, and referral to mental health services
- Promoting family involvement
- Improving clinical services (therapeutic interventions, computer-assisted assessment, decision support, evaluation)
- Supporting access to individualized, culturally appropriate care
- Broadening access to underserved groups (telehealth)
- Supporting professional training and staff development
- Improving administrative systems (client records, tracking, cross-agency collaboration)
- Disseminating up-to-date research
Technology in children’s lives: Opportunities, Barriers and Concerns
In the mental health field, the Internet has become an increasingly important tool for outreach to young people. Agencies such as Befrienders International “work worldwide to provide emotional support and reduce suicide”. Online service provision is also likely to increase. For example, professional associations such as the American Counseling Association and the American Mental Health Counselors Association provide ethical guidelines for online counseling and other uses of technology in service provision.
Despite rapid growth in internet use, there are a number of issues to be considered if mental health care is to benefit more fully from the available technology. One general issue to be addressed is the disparity in access to technology. Other system level barriers to be addressed include payment systems, legal and privacy protection, and geographically-based professional licensure and practice restrictions. In addition, many of the concerns common to general internet use, such as identity theft, receipt of unwanted information, and online solicitation, also apply to the use of technology in the field of mental health.
There are also specific social concerns related to internet use by children and youth due to the risks of increased exposure to internet crimes, including internet-initiated sex crimes against minors. Although this is a relatively new area of research, results from the National Juvenile Online Victimization Study indicate that children with mental health difficulties such as depression may be more likely to use the internet in ways that put them at greater risk. It is clear that more needs to be known about this topic.
Technology use generates both new opportunities and problems. However, it is increasing integrated into many aspects of children’s lives. Recent data from the 2001 Current Population Survey indicates that approximately 75% of 5-year-old children and over 90% of teens use computers. It is essential that these issues are discussed by families and providers of children’s mental health services.
If you are a family member, practitioner, educator, student, or have an interest in this important topic please share your views and perspectives on the use of current and future uses of technology in the field of children’s mental health.
Some questions to consider are:
- Have you used technology to access children’s mental health information or services? Share your experience of some of the benefits and barriers to its use.
- How can technology be used to promote family driven-services for children’s mental health?
- What safeguards are necessary for more effective use of technology?
As always, we appreciate your thoughts on this important issue.
Your thoughts…
Comments:
 What is the nature of international responses to health problems? What assumptions and intentions underlie aid programs? WBR LeoP Posted Saturday, January 20, 2007 at 03:49 PM
Gene, I have not tried "Skype" but I doubt that this software will give you the quality that you need. You might think about high speed "business class" internet connectivity with vidoconferencing cameras and audio on either end. You can get a fully encrypted system and reliable visual images. Of course, T1 lines would give you the optimal system.
I say all of this based upon my almost 8 years of experience of learning about and applying technology for workforce development, direct service and for providing web based training, crisis intervention and information. I am the excutive director of the Southern Consortium for Children, located in rural southeast Ohio. In 1997 we partnered with the Ohio University College of Osteopathic Medicine's Information and Technology Division to create the Southern Ohio Telecommunications Network (a branch of OU's larger videoconferencing system). I serve a 10 county region that is slightly larger than the state of Connecticut, and given our geographical size, it made sense to turn to technology to enhance service and supports for kids and families. We have a videoconference network of 14 sites connected primarily through T1 lines, but have also added high speed internet connectivity as well. Our first objective was to establish a workforce development strategy and we have been using the technology for training since 1998. Over 4,500 participants have attended our twice monthly offered trainings and we have issued over 6,000 CEUs. In 2002 we developed a website for online training through video streaming and PowerPoint technology; www.cbhed.com. In 2005, Ohio adopted administrative code rules allowing Medicaid to be billed for telepsychiatry and telepsychothreapy and we have begun using the technology to provide these services throughout the region. Lastly, we created Teenline Ohio (www.teenlineohio.org), a website developed by kids, for kids, which replaced our teen crisis line. Kids, by the dwindling use of the crisis line, were telling us to use technology in a different way to better meet their needs. This site will launch in early June '06 and provides immediate crisis assistance, lists local resources and links to accurate information that all teens seek, has interactive features from online assistance to a message board (we avoided "chat rooms" because of the fear of online predators).
All of this is a long winded way of saying that I cannot imagine life without utilizing technology, especially in a rural and remote area. If you want more information about the Consortium and our use of technology then please visit our website: www.scchildren.com. We may be contacted through this site and would be happy to help those who are just beginning this journey into technology. Lastly, I will be speaking about technology at the Georgetown Institutes in Orlando in July.
Steve Trout Posted Wednesday, May 17, 2006 at 12:17 PM
I am responsible for technical assistance and related training but not very techno savvy. I recently became aware of "Skype" software - free so far-which allows one to get phone calls on a computer for no charge. One can at the same time transmit a video image with various kinds of cameras that can appear on the computer screen as well. Has anyone out there tried to use this technology to conduct versions of video conferences, or otherwise use it for training, treatment, supervision or the like?
Gene Posted Wednesday, May 17, 2006 at 06:47 AM
The disenfranchised, who are in great need of accessing this data on-line will still have difficulty in doing so. Posted Tuesday, May 16, 2006 by Susan Mann at 10:30 PM
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