Investigating child-facing practitioners' understanding of adversity and its impact on children's development and service provision.

Adversity during childhood is a common risk factor for poorer outcomes across physical, mental, and social health. Despite growing evidence and policy around preventing adversity and its sequalae, the incidence of adversity in childhood remains high. Child-facing practitioners (CfPs) may be well-placed to identify adversity and address its impact on children.

Adult mental healthcare professionals' experiences of family centred conversations with patients who are parents: a qualitative study.

Background: Many parents with a mental illness report a desire for both recognition of their parental role and support for themselves and their children. However, parents are often fearful of negative judgements from professionals about their ability to be a parent, which inhibits raising concerns about their children with clinical teams. Consequently, an essential first step to supporting families is for professionals to proactively identify which patients are parents, although evidence indicates this is not consistently part of services.

Professional development scheme: a tool to measure health research competencies in healthcare professionals.

Significant investments have been made in health research capacity development (HRCD) initiatives focusing on individual professionals and institutional frameworks. However, prevailing approaches often prioritise specific research projects over explicit strategies for strengthening the capacities of health research professionals (HRPs) particularly in low and middle-income countries. Despite recognition of its limitations, this implicit approach persists resulting in a lack of effective HRCD strategies.

Obstacles and facilitators to communicating with children about their parents' mental illness: a qualitative study in a sub-district of Mpumalanga, South Africa.

Background: Given that common mental disorders are one of the leading causes of disease burden worldwide, it is likely that many children are growing up with a parent or other adult within their family who has anxiety or depression. Parents with a mental illness may not consider it appropriate to discuss their illness with their child, and consequently an absence of communication may lead to stigmatization, shame, misunderstanding their parents' symptoms, and even blaming themselves. There is a scarcity of research exploring the experiences and perceptions of healthcare professionals about communication with children of parents with mental illness in low-resource and African contexts.

Exploring the experiences of healthcare professionals in South Africa and Uganda around communicating with children about life-threatening conditions: a workshop-based qualitative study to inform the adaptation of communication frameworks for use in these settings.

Objectives: This study aimed to explore how published communication frameworks could be amended to ensure applicability and cultural appropriateness for professionals to support family-centred conversations by investigating' healthcare professionals' (1) experiences of providing support to families when a caregiver or a dependent child (<18 years old) has a life-threatening condition, (2) perceived challenges for caregivers and healthcare professionals in communicating with children about illness, (3) perceptions of how clinicians could be equipped to facilitate conversations between caregivers and children about an adult or the child's own life-threatening condition and (4) suggestions for amendments to previously published guidelines to ensure cultural relevance in South Africa and Uganda.

Design: A qualitative study involving two 2-day workshops with embedded focus group discussions, break out rooms and consensus discussions.

Setting: Health and social care and third sector organisations in South Africa and Uganda.