Short articles

Children look to parents and caregivers to guide them in how to behave when distressing or overwhelming events, such as bushfires and heavy smoke haze occur. As a parent or caregiver, the best support you can give your child is to be calm and reassuring, respond to their questions, keep them connected with friends and family, and take care of your own mental health and wellbeing. These general tips can help you to support your child during this challenging time.

Most Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander adolescents in Australia grow and flourish in supportive family environments that enable good mental health and social development. Despite the challenges posed by discrimination, low socio-economic environments, and the historic and ongoing marginalisation of First Nations culture, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander young people are resilient, showing positive outcomes despite the presence of adversity. This study investigated the protective factors that help Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander young people to be resilient.

Untangling the direction and nature of the relationships between peer victimisation, depression and anxiety is difficult because they often co-occur. Using data from the Longitudinal Study of Australian Children, this study aimed to answer several questions, including whether peer victimisation, depression and anxiety predict each other, and whether any of these domains have unique relationships with negative wellbeing outcomes.

Young children's mental health is influenced by their experiences across a wide range of settings, including home, school, and their wider community and neighbourhood environment. Features of the neighbourhood such as access to good-quality housing, parks, and local services can positively shape children's early life experiences. Researchers conducted a systematic review of international research literature, investigating how the neighbourhood-built environment relates to young children's mental health.

Up to half of all Australian children and adolescents who meet criteria for a mental health disorder receive insufficient treatment (or no treatment at all), even though effective treatments are available. Children with complex mental health conditions are particularly at risk of inadequate treatment because input is generally needed from schools and community services as well as healthcare providers.

This short article has been adapted from a paper recently published in Child and Family Social Work: ‘Cumulative harm in the child protection system: The Australian context’ (https://doi.org/10.1111/cfs.12621). The paper was based on a systematic literature review of how ‘cumulative harm’ is understood and operationalised within current Australian child protection legislation, policy and practice.

Evidence-based parenting interventions have been shown to have immediate and long-term positive effects on children's wellbeing. More recently, research has shown increased positive changes in children's behaviour and better parenting practices resulting from programs involving fathers as well as mothers. Yet fathers are underrepresented in services that concern child wellbeing.

This short article is a summary of the longer paper titled, ‘Testing competing mediators of the association between pre-conception maternal depression and child health-related quality of life.’

This article describes the social-emotional outcomes of the 'Dads And Daughters Exercising and Empowered' (DADEE) trial, which aimed to improve the bond between fathers and daughters through co-physical activity.

Children with intellectual disability are more likely to experience mental health difficulties than their typically developing peers. Efforts towards prevention and early intervention are required from all support services in order to best promote the mental health of children with intellectual disability and their families.

This article presents a summary of the findings reported in 'Latent profiles of early developmental vulnerabilities in a NSW child cohort at age 5 years' (2018) and 'Early developmental risk for subsequent childhood mental disorders in an Australian population cohort' (2018).

Over the past 20 years, Australia has emerged as a leader in campaigns that have focused on increasing mental health literacy, particularly for adult/adolescent depression and anxiety disorders. But what about child mental health literacy, which refers to adult knowledge and beliefs about mental health problems for children under 12 years of age? Aside from the recent work of the Emerging Minds: National Workforce Centre for Child Mental Health (NWCCMH) and beyondblue's BeYou initiative, there has been a noticeable lack of focus on child mental health literacy both in Australia and internationally.