Workforce strategies to address children's mental health and behavioural needs in rural, regional and remote areas: A scoping review

Introduction

Children living in rural, regional and remote locations experience challenges to receiving services for mental illness and challenging behaviours. Additionally, there is a lack of clarity about the workforce characteristics to address the needs of this population.

Objective

To scope the literature on the rural, regional and remote child mental health and behavioural workforce and identify barriers and enabling mechanisms to mental health service provision.

Design

A scoping review utilising the Joanna Briggs Institute methodology. A database search was undertaken using Medline, CINAHL, PsycINFO, ProQuest and Scopus to identify papers published 2010–2023. Research articles reporting data on mental health workforce characteristics for children aged under 12 years, in rural, regional or remote locations were reviewed for inclusion.

Findings

Seven hundred and fifty-four papers were imported into Covidence with 22 studies being retained. Retained studies confirmed that providing services to meet the needs of children's mental health is an international challenge.

Discussion

The thematic analysis of the review findings highlighted four workforce strategies to potentially mitigate some of these challenges. These were: (1) The use of telehealth for clinical services and workforce upskilling; (2) Role shifting where non mental health professionals assumed mental health workforce roles; (3) Service structure strategies, and (4) Indigenous and rural cultural factors.

Conclusion

A range of potential strategies exists to better meet the needs of children with mental health and behavioural issues. Adapting these to specific community contexts through co-design and production may enhance their efficacy.