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Strong evidence supports our current understandings of student bullying behaviours and ways schools can prevent and respond effectively to bullying behaviour. In the late 1990’s, however, little was understood about the most effective ways to reduce bullying in Australian schools. In response to schools’ need for evidence-informed action, a pipeline of research called Friendly Schools was initiated in 1999 which for the past twenty years, has provided robust whole-school evidence-based knowledge and skills to support policy makers, school staff and other practitioners working in schools and families across Australia.
The National Support for Child and Youth Mental Health Program (the Program) aims to improve mental health outcomes for children and young people, commencing with the early years and going through to adolescence, by providing targeted grants for workforce and education activities that will build capabilities aligned to the Program objectives.
Most young people live in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs), yet little is known about the implementation of school mental health promotion strategies in resource-poor settings. This study describes the extent of school mental health promotion and its drivers in junior high schools in Surabaya, Indonesia.
The transition to formal schooling is a critical milestone in a child’s development. For Aboriginal children, early experiences are shaped by both cultural strengths and enduring impacts of colonisation. This study explored factors influencing Aboriginal families’ transition-to-school experiences in an urban Western Australian community.
Schools are increasingly recognized as important settings for mental health promotion, but it is unclear what actions schools should prioritize to promote student mental health and wellbeing. We undertook a policy review of global school-based mental health promotion policy documents from United Nations agencies to understand the frameworks they use and the actions they recommend for schools.
Depression and anxiety are often first experienced during childhood and adolescence, and interest in the prevention of these disorders is growing. The focus of this review was to assess the effectiveness of psychological prevention programs delivered in schools, and to provide an update to our previous review from five years ago (Werner-Seidler, Perry, Calear, Newby, & Christensen, 2017).
In this paper, we aim to contribute to the understanding of the multidimensional nature of school readiness. In a sample of over 4,000 Australian children in their first year of school, we used latent class analysis to examine patterns of school readiness based on child, family, school and community characteristics, and examine the relationship between these patterns of school readiness and subsequent outcomes (reading comprehension, school absence and emotional and behavioural difficulties).
In Australia, the health and education sectors provide universal early childhood services for the same population of children. Therefore, there is a strong imperative to view service use and outcomes through a cross-sectoral lens to better understand and address the service needs of young children and their families.
School readiness is a construct used by educators and policy makers to describe a range of abilities that are beneficial for children transitioning to school. The association of socioeconomic disadvantage with developmental vulnerability when children start school is well established. Parents play a crucial role in supporting children’s transition to school and are acknowledged as their child’s first and foremost teacher.
Wellbeing and mental health are fundamental rights of children and adolescents essential for sustainable development. Understanding the epidemiology of child and adolescent wellbeing is essential to informing population health approaches to improving wellbeing and preventing mental illness.