A social enterprise providing education and information to protect and enhance the mental health of young people
With new rules restricting Victorians’ activities and movements to try to stem the second wave of COVID-19 cases comes the question of whether people will actually stick to them. There are at least two ways to answer this question, from a compliance perspective and a behavioural science perspective. Both lead to a similar answer: yes. [...]
Over the weekend, Victoria's Minister for Education, James Merlino, announced that the individual impact of COVID-19 will be taken into account for every Year 12 student in the state when calculating their VCE score and ATAR. Under usual circumstances, individual students are assessed for special consideration on a case-by-case basis. But this year, the Victorian Curriculum and [...]
Victoria is in the grip of its most severe lockdown since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, limiting more than ever the opportunities for victims of family violence to seek help. It's essential to closely monitor how the pandemic has exacerbated experiences of family violence, and how the restrictions are affecting people’s ability to seek help. [...]
Professor Craig JeffreyIn his book The Sense of an Ending, literary critic Frank Kermode considers the ticking of a clock. In the case of most clocks, each tick is an identical sound. But our brains impose an order on the sounds. We hear the first noise as ‘tick’ and the second as ‘tock’. Kermode likened [...]
Brett Healey, Curtin University First, a grammar quiz. Which of these sentences do you think begins the Eric Carle classic, The Very Hungry Caterpillar? a) A little egg lay on a leaf in the light of the moon. b) On a leaf, in the light of the moon, a little egg lay. c) In the [...]
Nadine Zacharias, Swinburne University of Technology and Rola Ajjawi, Deakin University Students failing at university is not a problem of “extremes”, as federal Education Minister Dan Tehan would have it. A large proportion of students fail units of study. And, surprisingly, our research found about a third do nothing about it. However, students who received [...]
Claire Hooker, University of Sydney It could be a brother or sister. It could be a neighbour. It could be a person you work with. We probably all know someone who doesn’t wear a mask in public even though it’s compulsory or recommended where you live. The media is quick to highlight people who think [...]
Ian Hickie, University of Sydney As Victorians face yet another long period of enforced lockdown, serious concerns are being raised about people’s capacity to comply with the new orders and the mental health impacts of such prolonged social isolation. The risks of being dispirited, chronically stressed and socially disconnected are real and substantial. While the [...]
Louise Stone, Australian National University Last week, the Australian government announced it will provide ten extra Medicare-subsidised psychological therapy sessions for Australians in lockdown areas due to COVID-19. In such a stressful time, many people are experiencing poorer mental health, and some need additional support. However, our mental health system is complex and fragmented, so [...]
Vasso Apostolopoulos, Victoria University; Maja Husaric, Victoria University, and Maximilian de Courten, Victoria University During the COVID-19 pandemic we’re constantly being reminded to practise good hygiene by frequently washing our hands and regularly cleaning the spaces where we live and work. These practices aim to remove or kill the coronavirus that causes COVID-19, and thereby [...]
