A social enterprise providing education and information to protect and enhance the mental health of young people
Pixabay Images Young people have put the spotlight on mental health in a new survey, naming it as one of the top three issues facing Australia. Mission Australia's Youth Survey this year found concerns about mental health across the country have doubled since 2011. About 22,000 young people aged 15 to 19 took [...]
Pixabay Images As increasing numbers of young people suffer from mental health disorders, the capacity of mainstream schools to support and maintain these students is becoming an increasing challenge. Of particular concern is the number of young people engaging in self-harming behaviour. The 2015 Australian Child and Adolescent Survey of Mental Health and [...]
Pixabay Images Across the U.S., there's been an uptick in the percentage of teens who are having episodes of depression, a new report finds. Overall, the national percentage of teens who had major depressive episodes in the 2013-2014 report was 11 percent, up from 9.9 percent in the 2012-2013 report, the researchers found. [...]
Encounter Youth In Australia, alcohol advertisements are not permitted on TV during times that children are likely to be watching, usually defined as between 7:00am and 8:30pm[1]. There is however, one glaring exception to this rule: alcohol advertising in sport. As long as it is during a sport broadcast, alcohol is free to [...]
Pixabay Images Thousands of Australian teenagers may find their favourite shoot 'em up video games redefined as illegal gambling sites under a bill to be introduced by Independent Senator Nick Xenophon when Federal Parliament resumes in August. Children are being groomed for gambling through hugely popular multiplayer first-person shooter games such as Counter-Strike:Global [...]
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 [...]
The rate of suicide in women aged 15-24 has jumped by 50 per cent to 6.3 per 100,000, new figures have found. Photo: Stocksy Jack Heath remembers her this way: a single mum on a disability pension. She had two darling teenage daughters, and she tried to do some extra work because that's what [...]
