Royal Far West's Allied Health Telehealth Services for Children Post-Bushfires

Abstract

Objective: To evaluate the effectiveness of Royal Far West allied health telehealth services to support the health and well-being of children affected by the bushfires.

Setting: In response to the 2019/2020 Black Summer bushfires, Royal Far West (RFW) implemented the Community Recovery Services (CRS) targeting the health and well-being of affected children. One component of the CRS was the delivery of allied health telehealth services to children.

Participants: One hundred and thirty-five children participated in occupational therapy, psychology and/or speech pathology telehealth. Forty-eight parents/carers completed a telehealth satisfaction survey.

Design: Measures used to determine effectiveness included child and parent/carer satisfaction surveys, the Canadian Occupational Performance Measure (COPM), the Goal Attainment Scale (GAS) and the Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire (SDQ).

Results: The children overwhelmingly stated that they felt listened to (89%), enjoyed telehealth sessions (84%) and learned new ways to cope with their feelings (87%). Parents/carers reported that children had developed effective emotional regulation and coping strategies. COPM outcomes indicated the children demonstrated statistically significant large improvements in their self-perceived performance of and satisfaction with their identified goals, p < 0.001. The GAS outcomes indicated that 86% of children attained or exceeded their set goals. A statistically significant improvement in children's mental health outcomes post-telehealth was found, as measured by the SDQ (p < 0.05).

Conclusion: Occupational therapy, psychology and speech pathology telehealth sessions contributed to positive health and well-being outcomes for children affected by the bushfires. The findings support the implementation of RFW's five key principles for telehealth services: (1) Access to a multidisciplinary team; (2) Practical resources; (3) Flexible delivery; (4) Providing in-person session to support telehealth and (5) Take a 'whole of child' approach. Innovative telehealth offered children in geographically remote areas access to effective allied health support post-disaster that was not readily available in their local communities.

Keywords: allied health; disaster recovery; telehealth.