Becca Allchin, Eastern Health Mental Health and Wellbeing program, FaPMI (Families where a parent has mental ill-health) Coordinator
Research focus: Mental health
Becca Allchin is a recipient of a Monash Partners Strategic Translation and Research (STAR) Clinician Fellowship. The program invests in emerging and mid-career clinical academics to support their career pathway development and train the next generation of researchers. Monash Partners spoke to Becca upon accepting this Fellowship.
What is your career background and research history?
I am a population-focused Occupational Therapist with experience in mental health services, international development and research. For the last 16 years, I have been working as a FaPMI (Families where a Parent has Mental Ill-health) Service Development Coordinator in the eastern region of Melbourne, where I have collaborated to translate research into family-focused practice. This has given me opportunities to be involved in the development and publication of a practice standard for adult mental health services, an implementation randomized control trial (RCT) of an intervention: Let’s Talk about Children and following up the trial exploring sustainability for the work of my PhD.
Prior to this role I was involved in the practice side of research projects developing and piloting a mental health literacy program in primary schools and a Victorian Government, Mental Illness Research Fund (MIRF) trial, VicChamps, that set the foundation for the FaPMI program. A two year stint in Northeast India working alongside a small non-government community development agency and a master’s degree in community development, strengthened my preference for pragmatic and participatory forms of research that grow out of practice questions and focus on research translation, implementation and sustainability. Through my PhD supervisors, I have also had the privilege of working with very experienced researchers in the Prato International Research Collaborative for Change in Parent & Child Mental Health, leading a research working group on spread and sustainability of family focused practice.
What made you focus on research into families where a parent has a mental illness?
While a clinician in a community mental health service, many of the people I was working with were parents. At the same time, I was also running a community playgroup in my local community where I was exposed to many parenting styles. I was struck that while many of the parents I worked with were doing extraordinary things to meet their children’s needs and manage their own mental health, their parenting role was only seen in the context of a risk to children and they were under more surveillance than other parents in the community. I had the privilege to work alongside some amazing trail blazers in this field such as Rose Cuff OM, Professor Darryl Maybery and Dr Melinda Goodyear to develop and trial innovative ways of working to help services and clinicians see and support parent-consumers and their children to promote the wellbeing of the whole family.
What is the prevalence of children presenting with their own mental health diagnosis to the FaPMI programs run at Eastern Health?
A recent evaluation of our referral data showed that a growing number of children (23% in 2024) enter the programs run for families where a parent has mental ill-health/distress with their own diagnosis of mental illness. While we know that some of this relates to the changes in society regarding diagnosing children with mental illness, it seems to also reflect increased stressors for families.
Tell us about your research study ‘Codevelop routine monitoring tools and feedback loops for FaPMI programs (for children in families where parents experience mental ill health and distress and their parents and families)’.
This project will work with children, their parents and families to understand what outcomes they hope for or have experienced when coming to peer support programs for families where a parent experiences mental ill-health and distress. Together we will then codevelop monitoring tools and systems that can be used to provide timely feedback to facilitators, support ongoing monitoring and build longitudinal evidence.
What is the problem your research is aiming to solve?
The Eastern Health FaPMI program has run a growing suite of evidence-informed peer support programs for children, and their parents and families for over 20 years. These programs have been shown to decrease mental health symptoms for children and promote mental health and wellbeing for all family members. The current suite of programs coordinated by the Eastern Health FaPMI team includes term-based programs for primary school aged children and their parents, ongoing monthly programs for children and for teenagers, school holiday events and an annual family fun day.
While there is increasing agreement that involving consumers and their family/carers (including children and young people) in mental health services development and delivery is important, there are no current avenues for children, their parents and families to shape the design, delivery and evaluation of programs run for families where a parent has mental ill-health and distress. A recent review of program manuals and of 15 years of child- and parent-participant feedback data highlighted that our existing tools for program evaluation were inadequate for routine monitoring.
Why is codesign with service users important within program design?
Codesign privileges the voices of those most affected, in this case the children, parents and families. Understanding the value of the programs from the children, their parents and family’s perspective will help to ensure the programs prioritise addressing their needs as they see them and will support program adaptation over time. Codesign improves relevance and enables designs to fit their purpose. The current evaluation tools provide inadequate information from children and parents, are difficult for program facilitators to administer while also not providing them with timely information to guide adjustments to meet the needs. Involving children, parents, facilitators and researchers in codesigning ways to measure if the programs are meeting their objectives, will help ensure the tools are easy for children, parents and facilitators to use, provide timely and useful information for adjusting programs, and support longer term monitoring and research.
What are you hoping to achieve with your research?
This project will partner with children and their parents and family to firstly explore what outcomes they hope for in attending FaPMI programs. Using this as a foundation the project will codevelop ways of knowing if the programs are meeting the objectives (measures and processes) that are acceptable to children, parents, facilitators and researchers. While developed to meet a local need, the results of this research will be a foundation for FaPMI programs across Victoria and of interest to the international collaboration.
Why is support for emerging and mid-career clinical academics crucial?
There are limited funding and support opportunities for emerging and mid-career researchers in clinical settings, and research in pressured clinical settings is difficult. The operational work of practice settings leaves little room for the conceptual and analytical thinking that research needs. Support such as this fellowship helps to keep clinical academics in practice settings, enabling practice and research to stay connected making better research and better practice.
Why did you apply for a Monash Partners STAR Clinician Fellowship?
I am passionate about research embedded in practice and saw Monash Partners STAR Clinician Fellowship as an opportunity to further the work our team has been doing in building an evidence-based monitoring and evaluation framework for the peer support programs we coordinate. The Fellowship provides salary support to enable protected research time, as well as access to mentoring and advice opportunities from senior clinical academics that will strengthen my research skills and help navigate a research and practice career pathway.
What is the significance of receiving a Monash Partners STAR Clinician Fellowship for your career and research?
I am deeply committed to research embedded in practice. Grounded in real-world contexts with all their complexities, such research has great potential to enhance the capacity of the health service, their workforce and the people they serve, and promote sustained change. The Monash Partners STAR clinician fellowship creates an opportunity for me to have a dedicated role in research within the clinical setting and access to mentoring from other clinical academics providing me with a springboard to future clinician research roles.
What are your future aspirations for your research/career?
I seek to be a part of creating a more inclusive and equitable society where everyone can participate in, and contribute to, their communities through meaningful occupations. I want to work with others in practice and research to reimagine possibilities for transforming systems and embedding sustainable practices that promote child, parent and family mental health and wellbeing.
