Mental health assessments and interviews of children are essential tools for gathering clinical information, allowing for the development of a more attentive, thorough plan for working closely with the child. These interviews tend to be flexible and are created directly for the child’s age range, so age should be considered the first essential element of these assessments (Cheng, 2020). In addition, the interview examines the child’s present medical history, socioeconomic status, and the nature of the child’s interaction with the environment, whether it be classmates, parents, teachers, or any other people the child interacts with on a daily basis. Any information about absenteeism and school non-attendance is also taken into account in developing an overall psychiatric picture of the individual. Important elements of such an interview should also include the collection of family history, whether it is the sequential development of the child’s nervous system, potential congenital abnormalities, and illnesses during pregnancy.
A direct role in the psychiatric evaluation of the child is played by the parents, who are the sources of the most valuable information. Parents interact with the patient the most, so the information obtained from them is potentially the most comprehensive yet highly biased. Including parents are often the first people to discover a child’s abnormality — or tendency to it — and seek psychiatric help (Hassett et al., 2018). It is important to clarify, however, that any treatment prescribed cannot be monitored by a physician outside of the clinic, so it is the role of parents to monitor the child’s treatment and communicate with the physician when necessary. Consequently, it is correct to view the role of parents as initiative-taking, involved, and interested.
Finally, the most sensitive event is communication to the physician by the child about the parent’s unlawful behavior. This may include but is not limited to sexual and psychological abuse, substance abuse, and parental abandonment. In this case, the psychiatrist should contact social and law enforcement support agencies (CWIG, 2019). In the referral, the professional fully discloses the details of their suspicions or evidence. Typically, the burden of reporting does not fall entirely on the psychiatrist, as they agree with the supervisor on whether parental permission should be sought for an independent review (Derby and Derbyshire, 2021). If parental approval is still needed, the professional will have an ethical conversation with the parents and express their concerns, but the communication must not be detrimental to the child.
References
Cheng, M. (2020). Child and adolescent psychiatry interview. PsychDB. Web.
CWIG. (2019). Mandatory reporters of child abuse and neglect [PDF document]. Web.
Derby and Derbyshire. (2021). Child protection section 47 enquiries. Derby Shires CBS. Web.
Hassett, A., Green, C., & Zundel, T. (2018). Parental involvement: a grounded theory of the role of parents in adolescent help seeking for mental health problems. Sage Open, 8(4), 1-11.