A social enterprise providing education and information to protect and enhance the mental health of young people
'Family-school and community partnerships are re-defining the boundaries and functions of education. They enlarge parental and community capacity; they create conditions in which children learn more effectively. In these ways they take education beyond the school gates'.* The Family-School and Community Partnership Bureau recently commissioned a report into the effects parental engagement on children’s educational [...]
I fear we’re seeing the rise of a ‘strip tease’ culture in British schools, and British culture, with the British family unit left marginalised. It’s hyper-sexualised British culture in which women are objectified, objectify one another, and are encouraged to objectify themselves; where homophobic bullying is normalised; and young boys’ world view is shaped by [...]
I finally got around to reading Freakonomics by Steven Levitt & Stephen Dubner. It’s been since about 2005, and has been on my list of “to-reads” but it always seemed to get pushed to the side for another title. Anyway, for those who haven’t heard of it, the book is a collection of observations and [...]
There is nothing natural or inevitable about women wanting to cut up their faces or inject them with silicon. Until around the 1920s, the feminine ideal was decidedly matronly. Victorian models of femininity were based on moral virtue or character, which meant that there was nothing wrong with ageing. In fact, beauty was equated with [...]
What defines the difference between an employee and a valued worker, between a supervisor and a superior leader? Some hiring executives and social psychologists — while not all in complete agreement — will say it could be emotional intelligence. The concept of emotional intelligence, a person’s ability to understand and manage his or her own [...]
"There can be no keener revelation of a society’s soul than the way in which it treats its children.” Nelson Mandela A new report released in Canberra on 15 March by the Australian Research Alliance for Children and Youth (ARACY) entitled The Wellbeing of Young Australians, puts Australia’s youth on the middle to lower end [...]
Just a day before they were to take effect, limits on large sugary drinks in New York City have been invalidated by a judge, in a significant blow to one of the most ambitious and divisive initiatives of mayor Michael Bloomberg's tenure. In an unusually critical opinion, Justice Milton Tingling of the state Supreme Court [...]
I believe American teens are in the grips of a psychological epidemic that has eroded much of their capacity to connect with genuine emotion and is, therefore, crushing their empathy. Having watched tens of thousands of YouTube videos with bizarre scenarios unfolding, having Tweeted thousands of senseless missives of no real importance, having watched contrived [...]
A new way to address digital citizenship in your school It seems that technology is a constant source of stress for teachers at school. If it’s not the pressure to integrate technology into their teaching, it’s the social issues related to students’ use of site such as Facebook, Tumblr or Formspring and apps such as [...]
As you are probably aware, the world is standing on the precipice of enormous change for women and children. For the first time in modern history, a nation -- Iceland -- has stepped forward to write progressive legislation that limits access to hard-core violent and abusive pornography. Arguing that Iceland has a compelling interest in [...]
