A social enterprise providing education and information to protect and enhance the mental health of young people
The Mental Stillness program is a simple strategy that is aimed at providing students with a secular, meditation-based skill to enhance resilience and wellbeing. The technique has undergone extensive scientific evaluation in Australia as part of the Meditation Research Programme (previously at the UNSW but now at Sydney University). We have now begun exploring formats [...]
Mental health stigma is a key factor preventing people from accessing the care they need, according to new research from King's College London. The new study, published today in Psychological Medicine, brings together data from 144 studies, including over 90,000 participants worldwide. Approximately 1 in 4 people have a mental health problem, yet in Europe [...]
Under the proposed amendment to the Racial Discrimination Act released by the government today anyone can racially insult or humiliate someone as much as they like. With extraordinarily broad exemptions, it will also be virtually impossible to prosecute anyone who does meet the Government’s extremely high bar for racial vilification and intimidation. It is a [...]
Teaching young women how to face their fears is succeeding in reducing anxiety and depression among Sydney schoolgirls. Macquarie University is tracking 2000 teenage girls for four years to identify which genetic, environmental and cognitive factors influence the development of anxiety and depression, and what works to prevent these conditions. Anxiety and depression are the [...]
Last year, researchers at the Massachusetts Aggression Reduction Centre found that up to 10 per cent of first-year university students had ''falsely posted a cruel remark against themselves, or cyberbullied themselves, during high school''. And this is not the first time that online ''self-harassment'' or ''self-cyberbullying'' has been identified and written about. In 2010, Danah [...]
It’s widely accepted that it is a fundamental requirement for student to feel safe and supported at school. In order to help schools to address this, The National Safe Schools Framework was developed and furthermore the Safe Schools Hub is a really useful website that has been developed to support schools in with stage-appropriate advice [...]
Yet again, Australia tops the list of happiest countries. I smile wistfully at the news that the Paris-based Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development has determined—yet again—that Australia is the happiest country in the developed world. - Roff Smith via First Person: Happiness Is … Being an Aussie.
New research shows that babies not only pick up on their mother's stress, they also show corresponding physiological changes. "Our research shows that infants 'catch' and embody the physiological residue of their mothers' stressful experiences," says lead researcher Sara Waters, postdoctoral scholar at the University of California, San Francisco. - from universities, journals, and other [...]
The conviction of an American ‘‘suicide voyeur’’ who encouraged a British man and Canadian woman to take their own lives in an internet chat room has been overturned on free speech grounds. - Philip Sherwell via Suicide voyeur William Melchert-Dinkel, who posed as a female nurse and went by the name 'Falcon Girl', has case overturned.
Children who suffer from frequent nightmares or bouts of night terrors may be at an increased risk of psychotic experiences in adolescence, according to new research that shows that children reporting frequent nightmares before the age of 12 were three and a half times more likely to suffer from psychotic experiences in early adolescence. Similarly, [...]
