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Growing evidence of the association between health professionals' well‐being and patient and organisational outcomes points to the need for effective staff support. This paper reports a brief survey of the UK's children's cancer Principal Treatment Centres (PTCs) regarding staff support systems and practices. A short on‐line questionnaire, administered in 2012–2013, collected information about the availability of staff support interventions which seek to prevent work‐related stress among different members of the multi‐disciplinary team (MDT). It was completed by a member of staff with, where required, assistance from colleagues. All PTCs (n = 19) participated. Debriefs following a patient death was the most frequently reported staff support practice. Support groups were infrequently mentioned. There was wide variability between PTCs, and between professional groups, regarding the number and type of interventions available. Doctors appear to be least likely to have access to support. A few Centres routinely addressed work‐related stress in wider staff management strategies. Two Centres had developed a bespoke intervention. Very few Centres were reported to actively raise awareness of support available from their hospital's Occupational Health department. A minority of PTCs had expert input regarding staff support from clinical psychology/liaison psychiatry. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background Resource constraints may inhibit the provision of appropriate interventions for children with neurodisabilities presenting with behavioural sleep problems. Telephone calls (TC), as opposed to home visits (HV), may be a more resource efficient means of supporting these families. Objective To conduct a preliminary investigation exploring the feasibility and acceptability of replacing HV with TC to support parents implementing sleep management strategies and to gather evidence to inform the design and methods of a full trial. Methods Parents referred to a sleep management intervention routinely delivered by a community paediatric team were alternately allocated to receive implementation support via HV (n = 7) or TC (n = 8). Activity logs recorded the frequency, duration and mode of support. Parents and practitioners were interviewed about their experiences of receiving/delivering the intervention. Results Intervention drop-out was low, the frequency, number of contacts and intervention duration appeared comparable. Parents allocated TC received less contact time. Parents valued implementation support irrespective of delivery mode and practitioners reported that despite initial reservations, implementation support via TC appeared to work well. Conclusions TC appears an acceptable and convenient mode of delivering sleep support, valued by both parents and practitioners. We recommend a full-scale trial to investigate effectiveness. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Working in paediatric oncology can be stressful, and staff may need support if they are to avoid burnout, but there is currently no evidence base to guide the development of interventions. As a significant barrier to addressing this gap is a lack of context specific research instruments, a project was undertaken to develop measures of the stressors and rewards experienced by staff. Measure development involved: (1) qualitative interviews with a purposive sample of paediatric oncology staff to develop an 'item pool' (n = 32); (2) selection of items for draft measures; (3) cognitive interviews (n = 7) to gather feedback on draft measures; (4) a survey of staff (n = 203) using the draft and comparator measures; (5) factor and Rasch analysis to determine the scaling properties of the measures; (6) an assessment of construct validity. As a result, the Work Stressors Scale -- Paediatric Oncology (WSS-PO) and the Work Rewards Scale -- Paediatric Oncology (WRS-PO) were created. Both measures have considerable content validity, and fulfil classical test theory requirements and Rasch model requirements for an interval level scale. These new measures can be used in research and clinical practice to investigate factors associated with burnout, and to facilitate and direct the development of staff interventions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Deaf children have an increased prevalence of mental health problems compared with hearing children. Generic Child And Adolescent Mental Health Services do not have the skills or expertise to meet the mental health needs of this group of children. Three teams in England provide specialist mental health services for deaf children. This research explored children's experiences of using these services. Twenty-four deaf children participated in the study. Overall children valued and benefited from the service. The expertise of the staff and the presence of deaf clinicians were key to these positive experiences. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A key issue, and one known to be highly problematic and challenging, concerns the transition of young disabled people from children's services to adult services, and from childhood to adulthood. To inform its recommendations on this issue, the Disabled Children's External Working Group (EWG) for the Children's NSF commissioned a review of research on young disabled people and transition.Given the preponderance of grey literature in this area, database searches were supplemented by hand searching of key journals and contacts with key individuals, research units, publishers and funding bodies in order to identify relevant literature on the experiences of transition from the perspectives of young people, parents and practitioners; the outcomes of transition; and evaluations of services provided during this life-stage.The evidence available with regard to transitions of young disabled people provides a clear and consistent picture of the way transitions are currently experienced by young disabled people and their families. There is limited evidence on what works to ensure smooth transitions between services and positive outcomes of transition for the young people themselves.Existing research is very persuasive on the need to improve transitions for young disabled people. It can also be used to provide clues as to the sorts of support and service configurations that need to be in place to ensure positive transitions. However, further research is needed both at the level of specific service/service model evaluation as well as holistic, longitudinal work to provide evidence on the long-term outcomes of young disabled people as they move into adulthood. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]