A social enterprise providing education and information to protect and enhance the mental health of young people
Educator’s focus and dedication calls upon much more than teaching the academic curriculum. As part and parcel of the nature of their work, they often become mentors, counsellors, confidants, emotional coaches and in some cases ‘surrogate carers,’ to their students. Educating young people is both gratifying and emotionally taxing. Educators are clever, stoic and remarkable beings whose [...]
Donna Pendergast, Griffith University and Sarah Prestridge, Griffith University With a little over three months to go, Year 12 students have their sights set on the last major hurdle that will see them complete their final year of school — exams. What a year it has been for them. All students have experienced disruption, some [...]
Managing challenging and confronting children while staying sane Andrew Fuller If you had to describe your child, would any of these phrases sound familiar? ‘It doesn’t matter what I say...’ ‘She just gets something into her mind and won’t give it up.’ ‘Some days I could just scream at them...’ ‘He has always got to [...]
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 [...]
