A social enterprise providing education and information to protect and enhance the mental health of young people
Flikr Images Welcome to our 6-part series on healthy and positive relationships! Over the next 6 weeks we will be featuring a series of articles from Andrew Fuller on the Relationship Quotient and its components, and how we can support young people create meaningful, positive relationships. We would like to discuss helping people develop [...]
Pixabay Images When it comes to mental health, the global health community has failed. Mental, neurological, and substance-use disorders are among the leading causes of the global burden of disease. By 2020, depression will be the second leading cause of disability. Suicide is a leading cause of death among adolescents. People with severe [...]
Pixabay Images Any dog owner will tell you that we can use a food reward as a motivation to change a dog’s behaviour. But humans are just as susceptible to rewards too. When we get a reward, special pathways in our brain become activated. Not only does this feel good, but the activation [...]
When bringing up the subject of drug use in Australia, people’s minds often go to ‘the usual suspects’: alcohol, cannabis and ecstasy. These three drugs usually get the most attention, and because of heightened media exposure (currently), methamphetamine (including ice) often gets a mention too. However, Australian’s use of all these drugs is either steady, [...]
Flikr Images Anxiety can be a masterful imposter. In children, it can sway away from the more typical avoidant, clingy behaviour and show itself as tantrums, meltdowns and aggression. As if anxiety wasn’t hard enough to deal with! When children are under the influence of an anxious brain, their behaviour has nothing to do [...]
Flikr Images The power of self-talk Every day we interpret what is happening around us, to us and within us. Our inner voice plays a huge part in how we understand our experiences and this inner voice is often described as ‘self-talk’. Our self-talk is often guided by our assumptions and beliefs and [...]
Pixabay Images When you and I were young it was unlikely we ever had to support a friend who was self-harming, simply because self-harm was not as widespread. I consider this is a huge ask for any 14 year old. It can create an incredible amount of stress for young people who genuinely [...]
Pixabay Images It took two-and-a-half years of intense joint pain for Maddison O'Gradey Lee for doctors to take the teenager's concerns seriously. The pain was "agony", Ms O'Gradey Lee, 18, said. Her doctors said it was a byproduct of her anxiety disorder. "One doctor actually said, 'It's all in your head'," she said. Convinced she had fabricated her affliction, [...]
Pixabay Images Meditation is just one strand of new “positive education” methods starting to build momentum and gravitas in schools. The key idea is to teach good practices such as mindfulness and gratitude that will promote resilience and, it is thought, help children lead healthier psychological lives. Until recently, these might have been [...]
Two years ago, Melbourne man Jarrod was aged in his early 30s. From a middle class background, he had been privately educated, achieved a university degree, married and had a daughter. He was an IT executive and worked long hours, but had plenty of friends to spend time with on the weekends. He was also [...]
