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Mental health concerns present significant challenges for Australian youth. Arts organizations play a key role in promoting preventative mental health strate-gies through enhancing the social and emotional well-being (SEWB) of youth. However, little is known about how the arts promote SEWB and the processes and contexts through which this occurs.
Parental support is strongly associated with protective factors across a range of child health outcomes for trans young people. Commonly, parents report barriers to supporting their child such as lack of understanding and difficulty in accessing information and support regarding gender diversity.
Masculine norms influence internalizing problems in men. The processes that explain this association are not yet comprehensively understood. However, there exists a compelling argument to highlight the role of emotional functioning in explaining how conformity to the traditional Western conceptualization of masculine norms confers risk for internalizing problems.
Meaningful involvement of young People with Lived Experience (PWLE) in co-designing youth mental health interventions has been much emphasized globally. However, there is a scarcity of evidence on involving PWLE of mental health problems in designing, implementing and evaluating mental health interventions, especially in Low- and Middle-Income Countries.
Alexithymia is characterised by difficulties identifying and describing feelings, as well as a lack of focus on feelings. Alexithymia is a transdiagnostic risk factor for developing a wide array of psychopathologies, such as anxiety and depression, with a key hypothesised mechanism being the impairing impact of alexithymia on emotion regulation competency. However, no study has tested whether difficulties with emotion regulation mediate the link between alexithymia and psychopathological symptoms using longitudinal designs.
Physical activity can support physical and mental health among children living with chronic health conditions; however, programmes must be tailored to their specific needs to support participation.
The developing hippocampus is particularly sensitive to early environmental influences, including during pregnancy. This longitudinal neuroimaging study examined associations between prenatal maternal physical activity and depression, maternal education, and hippocampal development from early childhood to early adolescence.
First Nations women in Australia continue to experience disproportionately adverse maternal and infant outcomes. The ongoing legacy of colonisation and systemic racism shapes these outcomes. In the Australian Capital Territory (ACT), maternity services remain dominated by Western biomedical approaches that fail to deliver culturally safe and anti-racist care despite national standards that mandate such practices.
The Kids Research Institute Australia is deeply grateful to The Yellow Umbrella Foundation for their generous gift of $38,453 to help fund a new mental health initiative for parents and caregivers of children living with intellectual disability.
The Kids Research Institute Australia warmly welcomes youth mental health researcher Associate Professor Kathryn Modecki.