A social enterprise providing education and information to protect and enhance the mental health of young people
The Anti-Bullying Week campaign has been launched in the UK this week, with the theme "Stay safe in Cyberspace". Organised by the Anti-Bullying Alliance in the UK, the campaign seeks to send a message that bullying is neither acceptable nor inevitable in schools. Research by the Department for Children, Schools and Families in the UK [...]
Calls for tighter underage drinking laws have been made by drug body The Australian Drug Foundation, who believe the current laws allowing underage drinking on private property without parental consent are too lax. The foundation proposed that adults should only be allowed to provide alcohol to minors with their parent’s consent, the adults should only [...]
45 leading academics, doctors and psychologists from around the world have signed a research paper detailing how pictures of airbrushed (digitally enhanced) models in advertisements can cause serious harm to viewers. The report titled "The Impact of Media Images on Body Image and Behaviours: A Summary of the Scientific Evidence" summarises the research of the [...]
This Thursday you have the opportunity to be part of the web-cast audience for the youTHINK: Live and Online forum. Part of the National Conversation organised by the Australian Government, the forum will run from 1pm-3pm Eastern Daylight Savings Time and encourages the audience to provide live feedback to the conversation. The forum will focus [...]
An American study has linked television use to aggression in three-year-olds, even if the child wasn't watching the TV. The study which collected survey data from over 3,000 mothers found that indirect exposure, such as the TV use by other members of the household, increased aggression in the children and could have a detrimental impact [...]
‘Sexting’, the sending and receiving of sexually explicit images via mobile phones or other applications such as instant messaging, email or through social networking sites has, until recently, gone largely unreported. What is concerning about the activity is its rapidly increasing popularity. It was often an extension of ‘I’ll show you mine if you show [...]
I often get asked questions like ‘what can I do?’ about the sexualisation of children. I think the key to change is collective grass-roots action so here are just a few ideas that may help you start your own local campaign: Ask your local video store manager to move the ‘adult only' section away from [...]
Here are the top ten “outs” that I have collected from teenagers over the years. Not all of them are great, but they cover a range of different ways of saying ‘no’, including excuses (often using information they have picked up in drug education lessons at school) and delaying or putting off the situation. ‘I’m [...]
It’s up to us to ensure that our kids get a balance in the stories they’re told. What’s also imperative is that among the stories told to our kids by others (through popular culture) and those that they ‘cobble together’, we include one about ourselves. Kids love to learn their family history through tales of [...]
Professor Susan Greenfield, world renowned neuroscientist from the University of Oxford, discussed the impact that computer games can have on the brain in an interview on Lateline on the ABC last week. She concluded that video games change the game player’s mind, both in good and bad ways. Professor Greenfield described our brains as being [...]
