A social enterprise providing education and information to protect and enhance the mental health of young people
There was a time when the most popular Halloween costumes were confined to the folk lore of vampire bats and ghosts. This was undoubtedly the popular culture at a time when "horror literature" was based on novels such as Mary Shelley's Frankenstein and Bram Stoker's Dracula. Although much of this is still with us in the Trick of Treating of today, [...]
"A washing machine tummy”; “a volcano inside of me” – these are some of the ways young children can describe anxiety and other mental health issues, according to staff at YoungMinds, a mental health charity. In 2016, Childline reported a 15 per cent in suicidal calls, with children as young as 10. There has been a steep [...]
Exposure to traumatic experiences in childhood can have a negative impact on the development of the brain when it’s most vulnerable. Cases of childhood maltreatment are more common than reported; conservative estimates show over 45,000 Australian children were exposed to maltreatment in 2015 and 2016. Adversity in childhood can include experiences such as emotional, physical, and sexual [...]
NSW employers are failing to address the mental health of their workers appropriately, with the construction and scientific industries among the worst performers, a rigorous new benchmarking tool shows. Fewer than one in 10 (8.8 per cent) of the state's workplaces have an integrated and sustained approach to mental health, according to an independent survey [...]
Not all silence on mental health problems is down to stigma. Sometimes it’s difficult to articulate what’s wrong. You can’t talk about mental health without talking about stigma. Personally, I don’t like talking about stigma – the more you talk about something, the more you entrench it. People often cite fear of stigma as the [...]
In past decades, teenagers struggling to deal with their emotions might have coped by taking a razor blade to their forearm or extinguishing cigarettes on their skin. Today’s teens, products of the internet era, have found an additional outlet. Approximately 6% of adolescents between 12 and 17 years old engage in a practice known as [...]
There has been a steep rise in reports of self-harm among girls aged 13 to 16, according to a study of data from GP practices across the UK. The BMJ study, which looked at figures from 2011-2014, said GPs could be getting better at picking up self-harm. But it was likely that rising stress and [...]
Something changed and getting out of bed was no longer the "hardest thing in the world" for this teenager. The depression had hung heavy over Courtney, sapping her of motivation for years despite the medications and therapy. Then last year – aged 17 – she joined a world-first trial that is beaming magnetic fields onto the brains [...]
With 50 percent of NSW adults overweight or obese, we are living in an environment where being unhealthy is becoming the norm. As spring has well and truly arrived and the weather is warming up across the country, there is no better time to refresh your routine and improve your health and wellbeing. With the days [...]
Working out what’s going on in the minds of younger Australians can be both confusing and frustrating. Are they happy, worried, feeling like they don’t belong, or all of the above? A new survey of 47,000 children across Australia, aged between 6 and 18, may give us a better sense of what makes them tick. [...]
