Articles

Young people with chronic illness or accident trauma often miss schooling. As a result they struggle to keep up in their studies and can become disconnected from school and important peer relationships. The Keeping Connected project is a significant and multidisciplinary approach to gaining new knowledge about young people in this situation and the professional and institutional practices that support them. It brings together a team of leading education and adolescent health researchers from the University of Melbourne and the Centre for Adolescent Health.

MindMatters is a national mental health initiative for secondary schools, which uses a whole-school approach to mental health promotion, in order to develop students’ self-confidence, optimism and self-esteem, as well as the knowledge, skills and attitudes necessary to establish and maintain a healthy lifestyle. This year a new professional development program has been added to the existing range of MindMatters services. It focuses on training core school staff in the collection and analysis of school-level data on mental health and wellbeing.