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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.
The incidence of mental illness is greatest among young adults, and those enrolled in higher education may be particularly vulnerable compared to the general young adult population. Many higher education institutions employ student support staff tasked with implementing strategies to improve student wellbeing and mental illness.
The transition to parenthood is a high-risk period for many parents and is an important period for child development. Research has identified that parental mental health, reflective functioning (capacity to consider mental states of oneself and others) and coparenting (capacity to work together well as a parenting team) may be particularly significant predictors of later child outcomes, however these factors have seldom been considered together.
The physical health comorbidities and premature mortality experienced by people with mental illness has led to an increase in exercise services embedded as part of standard care in hospital-based mental health services. Despite the increase in access to exercise services for people experiencing mental illness, there is currently a lack of guidelines on the assessment and triage of patients into exercise therapy.
Positive maternal mental health during the perinatal period contributes to general well-being and positive emotional bonds with the child, encouraging an optimal developmental trajectory. Online interventions to enhance maternal well-being and develop coping skills, such as meditation-based interventions, can be a low-cost way to improve mother and child outcomes.
Social disconnectedness and isolation are risk factors for poor mental health. Community-based friendship group interventions have been designed to increase an individual's social capital and consequently their mental wellbeing. Structured and unstructured friendship groups reflect two distinct approaches to friendship group interventions.
Maternal mental health problems are common during the perinatal period and have been associated with several negative outcomes in children. However, few studies have examined the associations between maternal mental health problems and offspring outcomes among Indigenous people, and the findings across these studies have been inconsistent. This scoping review examined the birth and childhood (≤12 years) health and development outcomes of the children of Indigenous women with mental health problems.
Family carers of youth recovering from early psychosis experience significant stress; however, access to effective family interventions is poor. Digital interventions provide a promising solution.
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.
Dr Vincent Mancini, a Senior Research Fellow at The Kids Research Institute Australia, has been awarded a prestigious three-year Fellowship to develop and implement an intervention to support the welfare of regional WA fathers and families in the neonatal intensive care unit (NICU).