A social enterprise providing education and information to protect and enhance the mental health of young people
Adolescence is a critical time for the development of mental health problems. In fact, depression is most likely to occur during adolescence and young adulthood. It’s the leading cause of disability in young people worldwide. At least one‐quarter of young people will experience an episode of depression before 19 years of age. By year 9, [...]
The federal government has announced a $110m package targeting youth anxiety and depression, including $46m in funding to a beyondblue program to teach students about good mental health in early learning, primary and secondary schools. Online and phone support services including Kids Helpline and ReachOut will share an extra $1.8m in funding over two years, [...]
With grief, sadness is obvious. With trauma, the symptoms can go largely unrecognized because it shows up looking like other problems: frustration; acting out; difficulty concentrating, following directions, or working in a group. Often students are misdiagnosed with anxiety, behavior disorders, or attention disorders rather than understood to have trauma that’s driving those symptoms and [...]
At a school in Perth, a group of teen girls is sitting in a circle, practising breathing techniques. One. Two. Three. Four. "I've only got a couple of minutes with them,'' a school counsellor tells me later. Why? Because if this cohort can't learn to slow-breathe in two minutes, they'll consider they've failed. Failed breathing? [...]
Owen feels compelled to make himself tiny, standing small in the corner with his arms folded while the family watches a movie. And he apologizes — a lot. This summer, as the 12-year old and his little brother Craig, 10, were gathering fallen apples near their home in the Salt Lake suburb, Craig decided to [...]
A comprehensive Australian study examining the global impact of suicide prevention approaches in young people has found that youth-specific interventions conducted in clinical, educational and community settings can be effective in reducing suicide-related behaviour in young people at risk. The review, by researchers at Orygen, the National Centre of Excellence in Youth Mental Health, has [...]
Some 80% of young people will experience a traumatic event by the time they become an adult. Rates of exposure to trauma peak during adolescence. The stress from traumatic events can result in a loss of interest in school, friends, hobbies, and life in general. The types of traumatic events include a wide range of [...]
For many children, the holidays are the best time of the year. There are countless holiday parties, big extended family dinners, special religious ceremonies, parades, cookie exchanges, and so much more to look forward to. For other children, this flurry of activities sets off the alarm bells. Big crowds and unfamiliar faces can be incredibly [...]
Mental health disorders may onset early in life, meaning that parents and healthcare professionals need to be able to recognize the signs and intervene appropriately. And as any epidemiologist will tell you, one of the first steps of understanding an illness or condition – and how to best treat it – is to determine how [...]
In Gloria Steinem’s book “My Life On The Road” there’s a chapter in which she talks about how everyone has before and after moments in their life. They’re an event or instance that you come to define your life by before and after they occurred. For her, it was being a part of the Women’s [...]
