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Senior Research Officer Tanika Sgherza is on the Healing Kids, Healing Families team.
The aim of this project is to develop and implement a culturally safe, responsive and trauma-informed parenting program for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander families.
Children and young people with type 1 diabetes (T1D) experience high rates of mental ill health and stress due to the emotional and cognitive energy required to manage their condition. Our team has codesigned Wellbeing T1D, a brief trauma-informed online intervention for adolescents living with T1D. This 5-week intervention will teach skills to promote problem solving, improve emotional regulation and promote helpful thinking and coping.
Defining rurality matters in healthcare. Evidence supports the singularity of the rural experience and its detrimental impact on health outcomes and, specifically, on mental health. Yet, no internationally accepted definition of 'rural' exists.
Dissociation is the act of separating oneself from reality and is often used by children and young people to disconnect from traumatic experiences.
This study examined how mental health clinicians conceptualise, assess, and treat dissociation in children and adolescents, and examined their confidence in working with these presentations to inform clinical practice.
Children with serious burns often suffer psychosocial consequences. This study evaluated the pilot of a 6-session psychoeducational intervention newly designed to support the wellbeing of children who experienced burns.
Culturally unsafe mental health services contribute to persistent inequities for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples, yet existing cultural safety frameworks lack clear, prioritised, community-endorsed implementation guidance. This study aimed to establish Aboriginal consensus on cultural safety principles, implementation priorities and practical actions for culturally safe mental health services.
Dissociative disorders in children and young adolescents are under-recognised and under-treated. Current diagnostic criteria rely on downward extensions of adult models and do not adequately consider developmental differences in younger populations. This reliance risks overlooking symptom patterns that may be unique in childhood, thereby perpetuating diagnostic gaps and delayed treatment.
Stigma towards individuals with mental health concerns is a global issue, including among young people at ultra-high risk (UHR) for psychosis. This study compared two written anti-stigma resources: (a) Education and (b) Lived Experience + Education, among young adults and parents/caregivers.