887 Innovative use of videoconference tool for parental education during COVID19

Background The COVID19 pandemic brought a lot of questions and concerns from parents about the impact of the virus on their children’s health. The widespread presence of ‘fake news’ was adding to the confusion. Our Paediatric Integrated Care team based in a tertiary centre in London approached local parents and community centres to organise online child health workshops. Objectives To support parents and carers in gaining knowledge and confidence to care for children and young people during the pandemic To reassure and reduce anxiety related to child health concerns To be responsive to our community and their health needs To make innovative use of video-conference technology and group teaching methods To make best use of professionals’ time Methods We worked closely with Community and Maternity Champions, who organise groups of local volunteers to promote health and wellbeing in North West London. Two Community Champions showed interest in having a webinar for parents on COVID19 and its impact on children in May 2020. We agreed dates and times for the 2 webinars. The Community hosts promoted the sessions and asked participants to submit any questions in advance so that the webinars could be tailored around the audience’s needs. The session lead (paediatric senior registrar) and other paediatric junior doctors prepared a presentation and answers to the pre-submitted questions. The format for the webinars was flexible, co-designing the sessions with the champions. The first had a 15-minute presentation followed by Q&As, the second did not have a presentation to allow more conversation with the families who joined. After each webinar, we sent resources for the community hosts to share. After trialling two webinars in May, we were contacted by other community centres. We organised six more webinars from June to December 2020. We captured data during the webinars, such as teaching material used, duration, session breakdown, size and type of audience. We tested different approaches for feedback, sharing survey links at the event and following up with the hosts two weeks after the event. Results From May to December 2020, we organised 8 webinars with 5 Community Centres, two youth groups and one secondary school, with a total of 72 attendees. Initially they were focused on COVID19, then we introduced other topics, including mental health, asthma and common childhood illnesses, depending on what the community hosts and local families requested. On average we ran the webinars for 1 hour. Formal and informal feedback confirmed that the webinars addressed concerns and that the attendees and community hosts found the session useful and reassuring. Peer to peer learning during the sessions was encouraged and this was key to improving audience’s confidence in addressing health concerns. Conclusions The COVID19 pandemic has opened up innovative ways to collaborate with community centres and have conversations on health-related topics sharing expertise. This project has also provided an important learning opportunity for paediatricians in training. The success of this programme is likely to lead to implementation of similar and related programmes, even after the end of the pandemic.