A social enterprise providing education and information to protect and enhance the mental health of young people
Pasi Sahlberg, UNSW and Sharon Goldfeld, Murdoch Children's Research Institute Many parents are worried the disruptions of COVID lockdowns and school closures may affect their children’s mental health and development. In the Royal Children’s Hospital’s National Child Health Poll in June 2020, more than one-third of parents reported the pandemic has had negative consequences on [...]
Philippa Collin, Western Sydney University; Melissa Kang, University of Technology Sydney, and Rachel Skinner, University of Sydney The World Health Organisation recently warned that people in their 20s, 30s and 40s, who may be unaware they’re infected, are driving the spread of COVID-19. Australian data confirms coronavirus is more common in younger adults. People aged [...]
Lindsay Bottoms, University of Hertfordshire While many of us may remember skipping as something we did as children, the pastime has regained popularity during the pandemic as a way of keeping fit. Not only is jumping rope a fun, affordable and portable form of exercise, it also has many benefits for our health and fitness. [...]
Monica Barratt, RMIT University; Adam Winstock, UCL, and Jason Ferris, The University of Queensland Lockdown and other public health measures to halt the spread of COVID-19 haven’t driven us all to drink (and other drugs), as many news stories would have us believe. Our Global Drug Survey released today, which includes replies from more than [...]
Emily Berger, Monash University and Karen Martin, University of Western Australia Mental health issues among children are on the rise due to the impacts of the COVID pandemic, including lockdowns. Recent reports show there has been a 28% spike in calls to the phone counselling service Kids Helpline between March and July 2020 compared with [...]
David Lubans, University of Newcastle and Myrto Mavilidi, University of Newcastle Primary school teachers often provide students with short physical activity breaks to energise kids and minimise classroom disruptions. Our study, published in the journal Educational Psychology Review, found we should be doing this for senior students too. We found a short activity break can [...]
Penny Van Bergen, Macquarie University; Linda J. Graham, Queensland University of Technology, and Naomi Sweller, Macquarie University Most of us can remember a favourite teacher. Some of us can also remember a teacher we didn’t get on with or with whom we always seemed to get in trouble. Relationships between students and teachers at school [...]
Lisa Mundy, Murdoch Children's Research Institute and George Patton, University of Melbourne Children aged 8 and 9 who watched more than two hours of TV a day or spent more than one hour a day on a computer had lower scores than their peers on reading and numeracy at ages 10 and 11, our study [...]
Associate Professor Nathan Grills and Nicole ButcherCOVID-19 has disproportionally affected disadvantaged and culturally and linguistically diverse (CALD) communities. However, the Victorian Government has released little disaggregated data on categories like ethnicity or socioeconomic status – perhaps trying to avoid discriminating along lines of wealth, race or religion. At one level, not releasing this data minimises [...]
Sarah Whittle, University of Melbourne and Kate Bray, University of Melbourne The negative mental health impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic are clear, but there is particular concern children will be most affected in the long run. By the end of March school closures were impacting 91% of the world’s student population and are still affecting [...]
