The full informed consent
Welcome to The Full Informed Consent(!), a blog explaining the unstated risks related to child mental healthcare and child psychiatry. These brief articles, which drop every few weeks, help parents and adults caring for children interrogate standardized practices in child mental health. Each article includes a parenting tip families can apply to their children’s mental healthcare to ensure it is careful and full of care, rather than careless and full of harm. If you’re a member of the community and interested in a particular topic not covered here, please reach out to Rupi Legha MD directly via email (rupi@rupileghamd.com).
Parents and families deserve the full truth. Child mental health providers are obligated to give them the full informed consent. The Full Informed Consent strives to provide both.
The Full Informed Consent: How Child Mental Health and Schools Intersect
Working with schools is a hallmark of child mental health. Schools are important sources of collateral information that supplement parents’ reports about how their children are doing at home. If children are doing well in one space and poorly in another, that finding can help providers pinpoint root causes of distress and determine appropriate interventions. Child mental health providers routinely gather collateral from schools through phone calls to counselors, teachers, and school psychologists. Other sources of collateral information include individualized educational plan (IEP) and 504 plan meetings and reports, as well as assessments completed by teachers. Examples include the Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire used to evaluate children’s mental health overall and the Swanson, Nolan, and Pelham (SNAP) Questionnaire used to diagnose attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) and oppositional defiant disorder (ODD).