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September 2003 - Issue 7

Family Help Update

Family Help Program: Bringing Health Home

Meet the Principal Investigator

Patrick McGrath Dr. Patrick J. McGrath, Ph.D., FRSC, O.C. is a Professor of Psychology, Pediatrics and Psychiatry at Dalhousie University and a Psychologist at the IWK.

Health Centre in Halifax, Nova Scotia. His research is in distance treatment of child health problems as well as in pediatric pain.

Dr. McGrath has been awarded a Canada Research Chair, the Canadian Psychological Association Award for Distinguished Contribution to Canadian Psychology, a Distinguished Scientist Award from the Canadian Institutes of Health Research, and has had the honor of being named an Officer of the Order of Canada earlier this year.

He is the founding director of the Clinical Psychology Ph.D. program at Dalhousie University. Dr. McGrath has been a practicing clinical psychologist for over 20 years, and has published extensively in books, abstracts and scientific articles.

How Family Help works

Family Help Program is a distance treatment service developed to provide up-to-date, evidence-based primary care for families whose children have mild to moderate problems not currently being treated in mental health services.
  • Treatment is delivered via educational (self-help) handbooks and videos.
  • Once-a-week telephone contact with a professionally trained coach who reinforces information outlined in the materials
Advantages:
  • Direct physician access
  • 1-page fax referral
  • Process time: 2-3 days
  • Early intervention focus
  • Bridges gap between physician and specialist
  • Families receive
    • Help from a distance
    • Privacy by learning at home
    • Convenient call times
    • Consistent, evidence-based care
    • Free treatment
    • No need for travel
    • No time off work
    • Materials free
    • Toll-free access
Do you know of a child (aged 9-16) who complains of headache or tummy pains at least 3 times a month? We may be able to help!

Pilot Study Progress

We are pleased to announce that the pilot studies are almost complete!

The purposes of the pilot studies are to ensure:

  • the physician referral system is easy to use
  • the interactions between the coaches and families are effective
  • the handbook and text exercises are manageable
  • the web site is easy for participants to access and navigate

To date there are 43 participants in active treatment in the Family Help Program.

Participants in the Disruptive Behavior Disorders and Attention Deficit/Hyperactive Disorder modules (web and phone versions) have found the coaching sessions very enlightening and the information and skills quite helpful in dealing with their children’s behaviour.

The Enuresis (bedwetting) participants describe the program as a positive experience for their families as they look forward to dry nights ahead.

Participants in the Anxiety module have found the materials and skills very useful and the weekly support from the coach extremely beneficial

Referrals remain low for the Pain module, so if you know of a child (age 9-16) who is experiencing headache and tummy pains at least 3 times a month we may be able to help.

Some early results from one anxiety participant:

New Projects: Randomized trials are underway!

The randomization phase for the Enuresis, Behavioral problems (ADHD/DBD) and Anxiety modules of the Family Help Program is underway!

This means that Family Help will compare different treatment groups by randomly selecting families so that they have equal chance of receiving one treatment or another i.e. standard treatment or Family Help treatment.

For all children referred for these modules, this means that:

  • 50% of the participants will be randomly selected to be referred back to their family physician for standard treatment
  • The remaining 50% of referred participants will commence Family Help treatment
  • Family Help will perform assessments with the standard care group at regular intervals
  • If at any point the problem has become too severe, the family doctor will be notified
  • At the end of the 12 month period, if it is determined that children who received standard care could benefit from Family Help, treatment will be offered

Currently, there are 7 children in the Behavioral Problems (ADHD/DBD) Randomized Module, 6 in the Enuresis Randomized module, and 5 in the Anxiety Randomized module.

Note to physicians: You will receive written notification when the Pain Module randomized trial commences.

Introducing: Coach’s Corner


Angela has an undergraduate degree in psychology from Dalhousie University.

She is the Primary Coach for:

  • Disruptive Behaviour Disorder (Web and Manual)
  • Attention Deficit Hyperactive Disorder.
She enjoys outdoor sports such as surfing and snowboarding.


Sonya has an honours undergraduate degree in Psychology from Dalhousie University.

She is the Primary Coach for:

  • Anxiety
  • Disruptive Behaviour Disorder (Web Version)
She enjoys cooking, outdoor activities and yoga.




Christine has an honours undergraduate science degree from Dalhousie University and is currently enrolled in the nursing program.

She is the Primary Coach for:

  • Enuresis
  • Pain
She enjoys singing, watching movies, and skating.


Andrew hails from the Bahamas and has an honours undergraduate degree in biology and psychology from Saint Mary’s University.

He is the Primary coach for:

  • Disruptive Behaviour Disorder (Web and Manual)
  • Attention Deficit Hyperactive Disorder.
Andrew enjoys playing rugby and sailing.

Web Treatment and DBD

- By Andrew Clarke, Family Help Coach

To add to the suite of programs offered by the Family Help Program, the Disruptive Behavior Disorder (DBD) web based treatment program was launched six months ago. By no stretch of the imagination was it an easy task assembling such a diverse group of talent from various disciplines to realize our dream of a web based treatment program for DBD.

The hard work of the web design and technical teams had finally paid off and the program has been a huge success.

The program offers the same material found in the written manual version, with the only exception of it being done on a secure Internet website, accessible only by enrolled participants. For those participants who don’t have a home computer, a Family Help computer with unlimited Internet access is provided for the duration of enrollment in the Family Help Program.

To date 27 participants have been enrolled in the web DBD program. Three have completed the program with great success and 20 are active in treatment.

Parents find the web DBD program very easy to use. They can send and receive personal e-mail messages to their coach as well as join discussions on the participant discussion board. Concurrently, parents find the interactive approach to weekly sessions with their coach very beneficial.

Web system treatment is now closed until we obtain additional grant funding for this program.

Physicians: Help us to Help your Patients

Fax Your Referrals to 1-866-470-7222

Physician Recruitment

To date, we have recruited approximately 140 family physicians and pediatricians from Nova Scotia District Health Authorities #4 (Colchester/East Hants), # 5 (Cumberland), and # 6 (Pictou) to collaborate with our program by referring potential patients for the pilot study.

If you are a physician within these Health Districts, and you would like to receive the Family Help referral binder, please contact Trish Pottie, Program Manager at 1-866-470-7111. We would be happy to provide you with one.

Thank you for your help!

We wish to extend our sincere gratitude e to the physicians for their continued support of the program and their referrals to us.

There are many more families and children experiencing problems who could be treated in Family Help and benefit from our program.

Summer has been a busy time for everyone, and we anticipate that many more families will be interested in the program once the return to the September school schedule is made! We look forward to the referrals for the Fall and we thank you for all of your help so far

Contact Family Help

BY MAIL:

Trish Pottie, Program Manager
IWK Health Centre
8th floor, Pediatric Pain Research Lab
5850 University Avenue
Halifax, N.S. B3J 3G9

TOLL-FREE PHONE:

1-866-470-7111

TOLL-FREE FAX:

1-866-470-7222

E-MAIL:

Family.help.info@dal.ca
The Family Help Team:

Principal Investigators: Patrick McGrath, IWK/Dalhousie University * Cathy MacLean, Dalhousie University * Carolyn Watters, Dalhousie University * Catherine Thurston Cumberland District Health Authority 5

Staff: Patricia Pottie, Program Manager * Heather Robertson, Psychologist, Candidate Register * Liz Coffin, Web Development Coordinator * Kirstie Hawkey, Web Development Consultant * Teresa Janz, Web Programmer * Sasha Porter, Research Assistant * Angela Mailman, Coach * Sonya Melnyk, Coach * Andrew Clarke, Coach * Christine Sherren, Coach * Claire Reinhardt, Secretary