Australia’s mental health commissioner has called for child and youth mental health to be a national priority, after a not-for-profit report revealed Australia ranks in the “middle of the pack” among developed nations on most key measures of child well being.
The 2018 Report Card: The Wellbeing of Young Australians, which was released on Monday by the Australian Research Alliance for Children and Youth (ARACY), tracked how young Australians were faring in international comparisons against 75 indicators of health and wellbeing.
The report card found many indicators were “heading in the wrong direction” with increasing rates of mental illness among Australians aged 18 to 24 years, a fall in immunisation rates, and extra obstacles facing young Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Australians across most measures.
“Every young person deserves a chance to succeed in life. We are doing well by some measures, but on far too many the data shows large numbers of Australian kids are missing out. A particular concern is too many Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander kids are not getting a fair go,” Bartos said.
“ARACY encourages cooperation between state and federal governments, researchers, the community sector, and young Australians to ensure that every taxpayer dollar is being used to maximum effect based on evidence of what works.”
Among the findings the report card showed increased levels of high or very high psychological distress amongst 18 to 24 year olds (15.4 per cent up from 11.8 per cent in 2011) and suicide rates amongst 15 to 25 year olds.
Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Australians were more than three times more likely to commit suicide than non-Indigenous youth and more than three times more likely to die of injury before the age of 14.
Speaking in the wake of the report the National Mental Health Commission CEO Dr Peggy Brown AO, said it was vital for Australia to invest in mental health for children under 12 years.
“There’s overwhelming evidence about the lifetime benefits of investing in prevention and early intervention from birth to 12 years,” Brown said.
“Many issues which go on to develop into mental health problems in adolescence can be identified, prevented and managed if picked up earlier in childhood.”
Brown also recommended links with maternal and child health services as fundamental to an integrated approach.
“The national approach needed is for better coordination and integration of services among different siloed providers to enable a healthy start to life for children,” she said.
“For example, Primary Health Networks and local communities could scope the development of local ‘childspaces’, or children’s wellbeing centres for vulnerable children, not as separate services but to be integrated into early childhood and other services.”
She said it was essential to build resilience and targeted interventions for families with children, both collectively and with those with emerging behavioural issues, distress and mental health difficulties.
“We know that 75 per cent of all cases of mental illness will occur by the time Australians reach 25 years old. When you’re young, the onset of mental illness disrupts every facet of your life – school, family, social life and job prospects – and your future potential,” Brown said.
“There’s an estimated 560,000 Australian children and adolescents (4 to 17 years old) in Australia who have a clinically significant mental health problem and many of them are at increased risk for suicidal behaviour.
According to the report only 79 per cent of year 10 students reached the international baseline level for maths in 2015, compared with 87 per cent of students in 2006.
Speaking on Sky News he said outside of the teaching influence, “an even bigger factor in terms of student performance is the home environment and the learning environment”.
“The research is very clear that the greatest factor for student outcome relates to the home environment, the educational attainment rates previously of parents, the focus that’s spent in home on reading and learning and activities there. Then, of course, the school has a huge role to play as well. And in many cases, schools will overcome disadvantage in homes, but you can see strong correlation points there which is what we have to work very hard to overcome,” Birmingham said.
“The Australian Research Alliance for Children and Youth (ARACY) exists to bring the best research and evidence to bear in solving the problems faced by young Australians,” he said.
“The report cards we’ve issued since 2008 embody this. Our report cards show how our kids are faring, not in light of opinion or conjecture, but in the cold clear light of facts.
“This latest report card is a great example of a small NGO being able to have a national impact. It has generated national media highlighting issues such as the alarming incidence of mental illness among children, the fact Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander kids continue to be left behind, and the need to lift our game in education. And most importantly, it’s having an impact in the halls of power.
“We have seen the Education Minister, Simon Birmingham, referring to the report card in the context of looking for ways to help parents be more engaged with their child’s education, a move that evidence shows can be the equivalent of providing a child with an extra two years of education. And we have seen Australia’s mental health commissioner, Dr Peggy Brown, calling for more action to help children under the age of 12 facing growing rates of mental illness.”
alejandro started following Store array in session variable, then modify?, Designme - Visually Layout Your Edit Screens - Preview, Access to list users and and 2 others November 12
But $slider is not a field in the block template, just a php variable in the template code. I'd need then a new checkbox field in the slider type block just for this.
But I wanted quite the opposite, I mean: 1) The rendered page is a block containing a slider (block-slider), so I declare a variable here, like $slider = true. 2) The render page ("basic-page" for example) renders that page/block 3) I'm using markup regions and in the _main.php file: $slider = true, so it outputs the necessary scripts and styles for the slider to work Thought it was a good way to optimize page load speed, to only use the scripts/stylesheets needed for each type of rendered block. But I misunderstood how point 2) is actually working.
Your way seems better to me thanks. Curiously using "page list" as input field type shows all pages tree, using a "select" shows only users.
Hello, I've created an "editor" role and there is a template (blog post page) with a page reference field where it should be able to choose an user (post author) but it seems it doesn't have access: "You don't have access to list page /alambre/access/users/" What permission should I add to the editor role? Already added view/edit in user template. Thanks in advance.
Hello there, I'm using a pagetable field with several templates and render(), it's possible to pass a variable? for example: - file "block" where: $slider = true - basic-page: $block->render() - _main: if ($slider == true) { slider scripts and css } (but $slider doesn't exists and throws an error, as I understand render() just outputs the html markup) Is there a way to do this? Thanks, Alejandro.
Yes, I upgraded to the latest version. Anyway, I've changed it to repeater field with image + page reference fields, so problem solved.
Hello, I'm having the Select button disappearing, so I can't select anything. Is there a fix for this issue? I'm using last version of the module. Thanks!
Well, I've just recently installed it, but I need to sit and learn to use it. It seems it's going to be of great help.
Thank you both. I like solution #3 $session->order = array_merge ($session->order, ['price' => 50]); I didn't know about "setFor", didn't found in docs or cheatsheet. And, what's? bd($session->shop); The array_merge works without it
Hello, after creating an array and assigning it to a variable in session: $order = array (); $order['token'] = 'token'; $order['product']	= 'product-name'; $session->order = $order; I try to insert another item: $session->order['price'] = 'price'; But it doesn't work: Notice: Indirect modification of overloaded property ProcessWire\Session::$order has no effect in... Isn't possible to modify such session variable? I could build another array from the session variable, add the new item, and then store it again in session, but doesn't looks good. Thanks!
Well, I found a solution, duplicate mystyles.js file (or whatever name), change the name and use it for the conflicting field.
Hey guys, i am using PW version 3.0.25 and i am hosting my site on AWS. I have encountered a problem that randomly after a deploy some modules are not available. It happens randomly, and to different modules. Clearing the FileCompiler Cache does not help in this case, after a redeployment the error is gone most of the time. Somebody has encountered the same problem or has any tips? Screenshot of the error message is attached Thanks and best regards Joscha