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Vocational Training
Community
Child Health - Australia
For the Joint Training Program in Community Child Health
and General Paediatrics,
see separate guidelines.
Supervising Committee
Specialist Advisory Committee (SAC) in Community Child
Health. The SAC in Australia will supervise trainees
in both Australia and New Zealand.
Definition
of Specialty
Community child health involves an understanding of how
the interplay between physical and social environmental factors and human biology
affects the growth and development of all young people whether well, ill, impaired
or disabled. The social environment includes family and school as well as broader
social influences, such as the regard given to the rights of children, the policies
and laws that affect the life of children, and the services provided within a
society to promote their developmental health and well being.
The specialist
community paediatrician will exercise professional leadership in community child
health through: participation in activities such as teaching, clinical and population
health research; health promotion; evidence-based policy and service development;
program planning and evaluation; community education and advocacy for the well
being of children and young people, in addition to the provision of relevant clinical
care and demonstrable commitment to their own professional development.
General Principles
- Advanced training in community child health
will be supervised by the SAC in Community Child
Health reporting to the CPPT, the CPPT in New Zealand.
- Advanced training in community child health will be for
3 years following satisfactory completion of basic training and the FRACP Examination
in Paediatrics.
- The specialist community paediatrician must develop a
broad understanding of the ecology of child and adolescent health and development
and the risk and protective factors which influence them at an individual, family,
community and societal level.
- Working in more than one setting and working
in more than one centre is encouraged.
- Trainees are encouraged to gain
experience in a wide variety of settings (in Australia, New Zealand or overseas)
including: relevant research or teaching in University Departments of Public Health;
Child Health or Paediatrics; working in government child health or welfare departments;
community-based child health services; child protection services; and in disadvantaged
communities within Australia, New Zealand or overseas.
- A minimum of 12
months training must be spent in Australia or New Zealand.
Components of Training
Demonstrable skills should
be acquired in the domains of:
- clinical practice: including
assessment and management of children and young people with developmental, learning
and behavioural problems and disabilities, child abuse and neglect, paediatric
rehabilitation, child and adolescent psychiatry;
- population medicine:
which encompasses needs assessment, including the needs of child and adolescent
populations with specific needs, community diagnosis, screening and surveillance,
infectious disease control, injury control, health program planning, evaluation,
and research including the quantitative and qualitative measurement of health
outcomes;
- effective health service provision and utilisation: management,
communication, team leadership, liaison and referral skills within and across
disciplines and relevant government, non government and private agencies;
- child
and adolescent health promotion: through education, information provision,
effective use of medicine and other preventive programs and advocacy;
- academic
leadership: through participation in teaching, training and research;
- individual
professional development: through an ability to critically appraise literature,
undertake research, demonstrable keyboard and computing skills, and continuing
medical and other professionally relevant education;
- knowledge:
of government policies, programs and services and their philosophical underpinnings
which affect the health of children, particularly those with additional needs.
Advanced
training in community child health should provide the trainee with a flexibility
and a diversity of opportunities to enable exposure to each of the domains listed
above. A detailed curriculum is available from the Coordinator of Advanced Training
(CAT) or the Training Section of the College in Australia. It is expected that
when trainees apply to enter advanced training, the supervisor should, in consultation
with and where necessary with the SAC CCH, review the basic training, and plan
subsequent training according to the long term plans regarding future role and
pattern of practice as a community paediatrician. Core requirements for training
should be noted at this stage and a formal review of training with supervisors
should occur twice yearly.
List of Advanced Training
Positions
in Community Child Health - Australia
Core
Requirements
Core Clinical- a minimum of 12 months of the
3 years must be in an approved training program
of excellence;
- 12 months
must be in clinical aspects of community child health, which enables the trainee
to provide continuity of care and must include:
- 3 months of child protection
- 6
months child development/behavioural paediatrics;
- at least 6
months must consist of supervised clinical training in a multidisciplinary community
based child health.
Some of the core clinical requirements can be met
concurrently.
Core Non Clinical- 6 months training in a non
clinical area of community child health including population medicine (including
research), health promotion and management; or
- an approved postgraduate
university course.
- This requirement can be met by successful completion of six months full-time
equivalent coursework towards a higher degree relevant to Community Child
Health.
Non
Core Requirements- the equivalent of up 12 months full time maximum
may be spent in an approved postgraduate university study leading to an MPH, MBA
or similar higher course work degrees. Prospective approval (not prospectively
approved) by the SAC is essential. Elective modules, theses or dissertations relevant
to the practice of community child health may be included;
- the balance
of the 3 years of advanced training being undertaken in any of the identified
domains of community paediatrics, including relevant research.
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