Whole-school mental health promotion in Australia

Although there is increasing recognition internationally of the significance of social and emotional health and wellbeing for the healthy development of young people, the levels of support that governments provide for mental health policy and programme initiatives vary widely. In this paper, consideration is given to Australia’s approach to mental health promotion from early years to secondary school, including specific reference to the KidsMatter Primary mental health promotion, prevention and early intervention initiative. Although it is now well established that schools provide important settings for the promotion of mental health initiatives, there are significant challenges faced in effectively implementing and maintaining the delivery of evidence-based practice in school settings, including concerns about quality assurance in processes of implementation, translation, dissemination and evaluation

Different measures, different informants, same outcomes? Investigating multiple perspectives of primary school students' mental health

Published version of the paper reproduced here with permission from the publisherStudent wellbeing is of central concern for parents and teachers and for state and national governments. Policies on wellbeing are now articulated within all educational systems in Australia (e.g. DECS 2008). Effective enactment of policy depends in part on the suitability of judgements made about students’ mental health. This paper investigates teacher and parent/caregiver assessments of students’ mental health based upon data from the evaluation of the KidsMatter mental health promotion, prevention and early intervention pilot Initiative in 100 primary schools across Australia. Goodman’s (2005) Strength and Difficulties Questionnaire (SDQ) was completed by parents/caregivers and teachers of almost 4900 primary school students in KidsMatter schools. The SDQ was developed as a brief mental health screening instrument and is widely used in many nations, including Australia (Levitt, Saka et al. 2007). A second measure, the Flinders Student Competencies Scale (SCS), which was specifically developed for this study, canvassed the five core groups of indicators of students’ social and emotional competencies identified by the Collaborative for Academic, Social and Emotional Learning (CASEL 2006), namely, self-awareness, self-management, social awareness, relationship skills, and responsible decision making, as well as students’ optimism and problem solving capabilities. This second measure was also completed by the students’ teachers and parents/caregivers. A third measure was based on a non-clinical assessment by teachers and school leadership staff, who identified students in their school who were considered to be ‘at risk’ of social, emotional or behavioural problems. The first focus of this paper investigates how closely the three measures of identification of the mental health status of students correlate. The second focus of this paper investigates relationships between teachers’ and parent/caregivers’ ratings using the SDQ and the Flinders SCS. Results indicate that significant associations were found between the three measures of students’ mental health. This suggests that non-clinical ratings, by teachers and leadership staff in the school, can provide one means of identifying students ‘at risk’, according to comparisons with the SDQ and the Flinders SCS. In triangulating the three sources of measurement, we provide a detailed picture of the mental health status of primary school students in the 2007-2008 KidsMatter schools. This paper provides a national snapshot of the mental health status of Australian primary school children. It also contributes to the growing body of literature examining the psychometric characteristics of the SDQ in the Australian setting, and to alternative measures for assessing student mental health in school settings

KidsMatter Early Childhood Evaluation in Services with High Proportions of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Children

This is the report of an evaluation of the implementation of KidsMatter Early Childhood (KMEC) in early child care services with relatively higher proportions of Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander children situated within the initial larger sample of 111 long day care services and preschools involved in the KMEC pilot phase during 2010 and 2011.KidsMatter: the Australian Early Childhood Service Mental Health Initiative, is developed in collaboration by the Australian Government Department of Health and Ageing, beyondblue, the Australian Psychological Society, and Early Childhood Australia

KidsMatter Early Childhood Evaluation Report

KidsMatter Early Childhood is the Australian national early childhood mental health promotion, prevention and early intervention initiative specifically developed for early childhood services. It was trialled in 111 long day care services and preschools during 2010 and 2011. KMEC involves the people who have a significant influence on young children’s lives – parents, carers, families and early childhood educators, along with a range of community and health professionals – in making a positive difference to young children’s mental health and wellbeing during this important developmental period. The KMEC initiative provides a framework to enable services to plan and implement evidencebased mental health promotion, prevention and early intervention strategies. These strategies aim to improve the mental health and wellbeing of children from birth to school age, reduce mental health difficulties among children, and achieve greater support for children experiencing mental health difficulties and their families.KidsMatter Australian Early Childhood Mental Health Initiative was developed through collaboration between beyondblue, the Australian Psychological Society and Early Childhood Australia, and with funding from the Australian Government Department of Health and Ageing and beyondblue

KidsMatter Primary Evaluation Final Report

KidsMatter is an approach to the promotion of good mental health, the prevention of mental illness, and early intervention where problems arise. It requires a whole-of-school approach and has four key components – a positive school community; social and emotional learning for students; parenting support and education and early intervention for students with mental health difficulties. Based on approaches already tested by the World Health Organization and the American Collaborative for Academic, Social and Emotional Learning, it has been adapted to suit Australian conditions.KidsMatter Primary and KidsMatter Early Childhood are being conducted in collaboration between beyondblue: the national depression initiative, which is contributing funding of $3.5 million, the Australian Psychological Society, Principals Australia and Early Childhood Australia

South Australian historical earthquakes in the pre-instrumental period 1837-1963: a comprehensive chronicle and analysis of available intensity data.

Macroseismic data in the form of felt reports of earthquake shaking is vital to seismic hazard assessment, especially in view of the relatively short period of instrumental recording in many countries. During the early 1990s, a very detailed examination of historical earthquake records held in the State Government archives and the Public Library of South Australia was carried out by myself. This original work resulted in the compilation of a list of just over 460 earthquakes in the period prior to seismic network recording, which commenced in 1963, The majority of these events had escaped mention in any previous publication on South Australian seismicity and seismic risk. This historical earthquake research, including the production of a large number of isoseismal maps to enable earthquake quantification in terms of magnitude and location, appears to have been the only study of its kind in South Australia performed so comprehensively, and resulted in the most extensive list available. After 20 years, it still stands as the definitive list of historical earthquake events in the state. The incorporation of these additional historical events into the South Australian Earthquake Catalogue maintained by the SA Department of Primary Industries and Resources had the potential to raise the previous listing of just 49 pre-instrumental events to 511 earthquakes, and to extend it back another 46 years to 1837. Some of the major events have been formally included in the South Australian Earthquake Catalogue. However, for many events, there was insufficient information and/or time to finalise the source parameters due to the onerous task of manually trawling through historical records and newspapers for felt reports. With the advent of the information age, researching historical newspapers and records is now a feasible undertaking. As an example, I recovered reports of an additional 110 previously unrecognised events during the first 50 years of colonisation from digitised South Australian newspapers, recently made available on the National Library of Australia’s website called TROVE. This was done in a relatively short period of time and now the South Australian Historical Earthquake List incorporating these events comprises some 679 entries. This thesis builds upon and consolidates the work that was commenced 20 years ago. By doing so, it proposes the establishment of flexible and convenient computerized processes to maintain well into the future an increasingly accurate record of historical earthquakes in South Australia. This work may also provide a model for the ongoing development of historical earthquake records in other states and territories of Australia.Thesis (M.Phil.) -- University of Adelaide, School of Chemistry and Physics, 201