Delivering Quality Allied Health Services to Children with Complex Disability via Telepractice: Lessons Learned from Four Case Studies

Reconceptualizing Social Distancing: Teletherapy and Social Inequality During the COVID-19 and Loneliness Pandemics

“…Teletherapy is no doubt an excellent response for emergencies such as the COVID-19 pandemic. It has also served in the efforts of increasing access to psychotherapy in places with limitations to local mental health resources (e.g., rural areas) and treating individuals with substantial disabilities (Gallego et al, 2017; Hines et al, 2019; Kingsley & Henning, 2015). Nevertheless teletherapy should not always replace the face-to-face therapeutic encounter.…”

COVID-19 and Psychosocial Support Services: Experiences of People Living with Enduring Mental Health Conditions

“…Our study indicated that familiarity with technology and tele-support was important to people’s experiences. This is supported by research in allied health, which has suggested that the acceptability of telehealth services increases with experience and exposure (Hines et al, 2019 ; Hines et al, 2015 ; Rietdijk et al, 2020 ). While difficult in the midst of pandemic restrictions, taking time to introduce service users to tele-support as an option is likely to increase their comfort with the medium.…”

“…Regardless, any perceptions of the inferiority of tele-support would need to be addressed in order to support its uptake and effectiveness for service users. For instance, setting users up to confidently access teleconferencing, through hands on training and resource provision, would take time and money but, given the potential savings in terms of support workers’ travel time, these steps to increase the acceptability of tele-support to service users (Hines et al, 2019 ) may be a viable investment. In addition, helping service users to develop skills in technology can facilitate other sources of support, especially during a pandemic situation, such as maintaining social connections and doing online shopping (Winstanley et al, 2020 ).…”

“…Further a recent narrative review of therapeutic alliance in online psychotherapy concluded that therapeutic alliance, particularly from clients’ points of view, was high and comparable with face-to-face services (Berger, 2016 ). Similarly, evidence suggests that allied health services delivered via telehealth may be as effective as in-person services (Grogan-Johnson et al, 2010 ; Speyer et al, 2018 ) and they have repeatedly been found to be highly acceptable to service users (Crutchley & Campbell, 2010 ; Graham et al, 2020 ; Hines et al, 2019 ).…”

PreEMPT (Preterm Infant Early Intervention for Movement and Participation Trial): The Feasibility of a Novel, Participation-Focused Early Physiotherapy Intervention Supported by Telehealth in Regional Australia—A Protocol

“…In terms of the utilisation of telehealth programs for children and their families, there is a broad spectrum of research on various populations, delivery models and purposes. Some examples include the assessment of infant gross motor development via video recordings [15] [16] or via real time video call [17], training for parents of children with Autism Spectrum Disorder [18], and evaluating parental experience of telehealth from parents with children with complex disabilities [19]. A recent systematic review of the diversity of telehealth practices in children with disabilities [20] identified that effective interventions tended to be "targeted at parents, centred around an exercise program, used a coaching approach, focused on improving children's behavioural functioning, lasted at least >8 weeks and were offered at least once per week".…”