Medical home is an approach of integrating early childhood mental health staff, services, and systems into pediatric practices, and provides comprehensive primary care in which a care team partners with a child and his/her family to assure that all of the medical and psychosocial needs of the patient are met.
There are some key challenges in implementing collaborative care model. In many countries, primary health care workers, including physicians, have limited training about current developments in the diagnosis and treatment of mental disorders in children and adolescents.
The specialized pediatric psychiatrists are in short supply and overburdened, resulting in delays and neglect early diagnosis and treatment.
3. Addressing Mental Health Risks through the Promotion and Protection …show more content…
Risk factors at Individual level include, low self-esteem, cognitive/emotional immaturity, difficulties in communicating, medical illness, and substance use (WHO 2012). Familial risk factors include childhood maltreatment (including abuse and neglect), parental or familial substance abuse, marital status of parents, level of parental education, parent-child relationships, familial socioeconomic status (Whitesell et al 2013). Accumulating evidence suggests that social contexts in early life have important and complex effects on childhood psychopathology. There is increasing recogni¬tion that child development is powerfully affected by the broader social contexts of schools and communities (O'Connell - 2009). Schools are an important context for children’s social and emotional development. Risk factors, such as victimization, bullying, academic failure, association with deviant peers, norms and laws favoring antisocial behavior, violence, and substance use, are linked primarily with neighborhoods and schools (O'Connell et al,