Healthcare providers' perceptions of virtual-care with children's mental health in a pandemic: A hospital and community perspective.

Aim: The purpose of the present study was to explore the experiences of a diverse group of mental health clinicians both in hospital and in the community, who were required to rapidly adopt virtual-care practices in the delivery of mental health services to children, adolescents, and their families.

Methods: Mental health clinicians (N = 117) completed the Clinician Virtual-Care Experience Survey assessing the following domains: ease of technology use, client/patient-provider interaction quality, and clinician wellbeing.

Results: Although over 70% of clinicians had not used virtual-care to deliver mental health services prior to the Coronavirus Disease 2019 pandemic, more than 80% felt it was easy to operate the virtual platforms.

From Pandemic to Progression: An Educational Framework for the Implementation of Virtual Mental Healthcare for Children and Youth as a Response to COVID-19.

COVID-19 restrictions have necessitated child/youth mental health providers to shift towards virtually delivering services to patients' homes rather than hospitals and community mental health clinics. There is scant guidance available for clinicians on how to address unique considerations for the virtual mental healthcare of children and youth as clinicians rapidly shift their practices away from in-person care in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic. Therefore, we bridge this gap by discussing a six-pillar framework developed at Hospital for Sick Children (SickKids) in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, for delivering direct to patient virtual mental healthcare to children, youth and their families.