A social enterprise providing education and information to protect and enhance the mental health of young people
Professor Helen CahillFirst came the bushfires and then came the COVID-19 pandemic. Both of these large-scale emergencies have a potentially lasting effect on Australian school children. But they also raised a lot of questions about the competing priorities our schools face. COVID-19 has raised a lot of questions about the competing priorities our schools face. [...]
A principal in the USA has gone viral with a parody of MC Hammer's classic hit of "U Can't Touch This." Catchy public health messaging is what young people need at the moment and this rap song about COVID from Dr Quentin J. Lee from Alabama provides just that. A resource like this one is [...]
The COVID-19 pandemic has brought into sharp focus the ways we access, use and misuse evidence to guide our responses to the spread of the coronavirus. As we’ve seen, the use of evidence has been highly variable. Andrew Pattison from the World Health Organisation said false information was "spreading faster than the virus". This so-called [...]
At the height of the COVID-19 restrictions, clinically significant depression and anxiety symptoms were at least two to three times higher than would normally be observed in the community. These and other findings were revealed by the largest nationwide survey of mental health during April and early May 2020, when the strictest lockdown measures were [...]
Despite school closures (re)occurring around the world as a way to slow the spread of COVID-19, early childhood education and care (ECEC) providers in Australia have been encouraged to keep their doors open since the start of the crisis. While it was initially suggested there was evidence to suggest that young children were less likely to catch [...]
Dr Barbara Broadway , Dr Julie Moschion and Dr Susan MéndezIt has been very clear from early on in the COVID-19 crisis that mental health issues will be one of the greatest consequences of the lockdowns and economic recession. Reports of high mental distress have doubled since the pandemic began. Around 36 per cent of [...]
Aliza Werner-Seidler, UNSW and Sophie H Li, UNSW Access to mental health support has never been more important, as Melburnians are hit with a stage 4 lockdown and much of the rest of Australia braces for a potential second wave of COVID-19. This year, many mental health professionals have moved to providing telehealth services via [...]
Louise Phillips, James Cook University and Melissa Cain, Australian Catholic University All Victorian school students will be learning remotely from Wednesday. Prior to the state’s premier Daniel Andrews announcing a tightening of restrictions over the weekend, only students in prep to Year 10 in Melbourne and the Mitchell Shire were learning from home. But on [...]
Sarah Wayland, University of Sydney and Lorna Ferguson, Western University As part of new research into missing persons in Australia, I have been asking people who return after disappearing what they needed or wanted. Mary, who has gone missing four times in the last few years, responded, I just wanted someone to ask if I [...]
Robyn Lucas, Australian National University How does the Sun help your body make vitamin D? Wesley, aged 7 Thanks for this great question, Wesley. Vitamin D is created when the chemicals in our skin react to an invisible type of light from the Sun. In Australia, most of our vitamin D is made in our [...]
