A social enterprise providing education and information to protect and enhance the mental health of young people
Professor Craig JeffreyIn his book The Sense of an Ending, literary critic Frank Kermode considers the ticking of a clock. In the case of most clocks, each tick is an identical sound. But our brains impose an order on the sounds. We hear the first noise as ‘tick’ and the second as ‘tock’. Kermode likened [...]
Brett Healey, Curtin University First, a grammar quiz. Which of these sentences do you think begins the Eric Carle classic, The Very Hungry Caterpillar? a) A little egg lay on a leaf in the light of the moon. b) On a leaf, in the light of the moon, a little egg lay. c) In the [...]
Ian Hickie, University of Sydney As Victorians face yet another long period of enforced lockdown, serious concerns are being raised about people’s capacity to comply with the new orders and the mental health impacts of such prolonged social isolation. The risks of being dispirited, chronically stressed and socially disconnected are real and substantial. While the [...]
Kathryn Abel, University of Manchester and Matthias Pierce, University of Manchester Public health responses to the pandemic have focused on preventing the spread of the virus, limiting the number of deaths and easing the burden on healthcare systems. But there’s also potentially another, less visible epidemic we should be focusing on: mental illness. Our recent [...]
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 [...]
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 [...]
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 [...]
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 [...]
