A social enterprise providing education and information to protect and enhance the mental health of young people
The federal government has announced a $110m package targeting youth anxiety and depression, including $46m in funding to a beyondblue program to teach students about good mental health in early learning, primary and secondary schools. Online and phone support services including Kids Helpline and ReachOut will share an extra $1.8m in funding over two years, [...]
They call themselves the King Stones after their home suburb in Logan — Kingston. Get it? Like all teenagers, they love listening to music. But these teens from Logan, south of Brisbane, face a whole lot more than just the usual adolescent angst. Aged from 17 to 19, the members of the King Stones all [...]
Think of an internet meme and you’ll probably smile. The most memorable viral images are usually funny, from Distracted Boyfriend to classics like Grumpy Cat. But some memes have a much more sinister meaning. They might look as innocuous as a frog, but are in fact symbols of hate. And as memes have become more [...]
Last week I was followed around the Internet by a pair of shoes. I had looked at them online as a gift for my father-in-law, but he didn’t like them, and neither did I. Yet no matter what site I visited, there they were, staring at me in their full moccasin glory. Digital advertising can [...]
Cyberbullying peaks when students are on summer break, but parents are leaving teachers to deal with the fallout when the school year resumes, educators and experts say. Melbourne teacher Joel Hamilton* has had enough of your children. Specifically, he's had enough of you. "Teachers are fighting a losing battle against parents," the primary school educator [...]
The American Psychological Association has issued its first official warning against toxic masculinity. The new “Guidelines for the Psychological Practice with Boys and Men,” marks the first-ever report published by the association aimed at helping practitioners care for their male patients “despite social forces that can harm mental health.” Citing more than 40 years of [...]
With grief, sadness is obvious. With trauma, the symptoms can go largely unrecognized because it shows up looking like other problems: frustration; acting out; difficulty concentrating, following directions, or working in a group. Often students are misdiagnosed with anxiety, behavior disorders, or attention disorders rather than understood to have trauma that’s driving those symptoms and [...]
Smartphones. Facebook. Reality TV. It’s easy to look at our changing world and come to the following conclusion: we’re all getting stupid. That’s not the case. In fact, over the last century, the average Australian IQ has dramatically increased. Compared to Australians who lived 100 years ago, we’re a nation of geniuses. But now, some [...]
We know from new research that children whose mothers are depressed may respond differently to stress, have altered immunity and be at greater risk of psychological disorders. This work adds to the body of research showing children can be affected in negative and long-term ways by their mothers’ mental ill-health. But what about dads? Men’s [...]
I care deeply about young people and have done since I too was a moody, often confused adolescent who made some big, sometimes life-threatening, mistakes. The development of the physical body together with sexual urges, novelty seeking behaviours, rapidly changing moods and emotional states make adolescence a very interesting time. The developing pre-frontal lobe affects [...]
