A social enterprise providing education and information to protect and enhance the mental health of young people
48% of women have experienced physical violence 34% of women have experienced sexual violence* 14% of young women aged 12 to 20 have experienced rape or sexual assault** Join over 60,00 Australians, including many celebrities like Rove, Keith Urban and Andrew O’Keefe and take an oath to end violence against women. It is important to [...]
I'm a bit over this whole 'homework' debate! Research findings across the years seem to come to pretty much the same conclusion - there's a good side and a bad side to homework. Nothing new here. I've been a primary teacher for 25 years and avoided what I considered to be useless and time-wasting 'fillers' [...]
The brain has evolved to respond in predictable ways to threats in the physical environment. Similarly, the brain is attuned to identify and reinforce behaviours that benefit our survival. These threat and reward-related circuits are well described. For example the amygdala, the most well studies threat-related brain region, responds to universally threatening stimuli such as [...]
SEXUAL assaults and related offenses committed by school-aged children have almost quadrupled in four years. Australian Bureau of Statistics figures show that between 2007 and 2011 the number of offenses jumped from 430 to 1709 across the nation. Experts believe the greater and easier access children now have to pornographic material via the internet is [...]
On Wednesday 14th November at 7pm AEDT (6pm in Brisbane, 4pm in Perth & 8am in London) PLANE will be hosting a live online Q&A webinar addressing a range of issues around education and wellbeing. I will be on the panel taking questions alongside 2009 Young Australian of the Year for Tasmania Sam Cawthorn, Daily [...]
25% of people with a mental disorder experience their first episode before they are 12 years old.* The Australian Medical Association (AMA) Vice President, Professor Geoffrey Dobb, said that “Good mental health is vital to our wellbeing - it allows us to think and learn and interact meaningfully with others.” The main influences on a [...]
FOR a long time it was said the ‘‘jury was out’’ on the impact of media violence. Not any more. A special commission set up by the International Society for Research on Aggression comprising 12 international authors and endorsed by 250 of the world’s leading researchers has concluded that exposure to a range of violent [...]
(Genuine) Engagement & Wellbeing enhance achievement, yet how many schools pursue achievement at the expense of engagement and wellbeing? The following is an extract from my recently published manifesto, “Still Trying to Find X”. It is essential that we create a Virtuous Cycle for all students in our schools. The Virtuous Cycle relies on having positive relationships at its heart or [...]
Stress in parents may contribute to obesity in their kids, and as parental stress rises the kids are more likely to eat fast food, a new study finds. The research has caveats. It doesn't definitively prove that kids put on more pounds when they live with stressed-out adults. And, oddly, the study found that kids [...]
As one of Britain's foremost child psychotherapists, Julie Lynn Evans thought she had long since heard every parental nightmare. But last week, after reading the tragic story of 15-year-old Tallulah Wilson, who killed herself after visiting websites about self-harm and anorexia, she found herself in tears. Her clients include three young people who have attempted [...]
