Transcript

Associate Professor Melissa Kang [00:01:05] Well hello everybody and welcome to the Wellbeing Health & Youth Centre for Research Excellence webinar this Tuesday. My name is Melissa Kang. I'm an Associate Investigator on the Wellbeing, health and Youth theory. I'm currently working at the University of Sydney. I'm the Co-head of the General Practice Clinical School in the Sydney Medical School, and a very warm welcome to you all. I'd like to acknowledge the funding support of the NHMRC, and the contributions of all these research partners in universities across Australia. Who support WH&Y and this webinar series. I'd also like to acknowledge the traditional owners of the country and the lands from which all of you are joining. I am sitting here on beautiful Gadigal land in the central part of Sydney. I'd like to pay respects on behalf of all of us to elders past, present and emerging, and welcome any First Nations peoples who are joining us on the webinar today. 

Associate Professor Melissa Kang [00:02:14] So the WH&Y community of practice is a place where researchers, clinicians, policymakers and young people, especially, come together to share ideas and exchange information. Please log in, if you're not a member of the community practice, please sign up. That's the URL there and you'd be very welcome. This is a wonderful community around the country who shares ideas, gets together, comes to webinars, and, it's really where we're all wanting to champion the teenage teenage decade and make health and wellbeing better for our young people. 

Associate Professor Melissa Kang [00:02:54] During this webinar your microphone will be muted by the host and your video switched off. If there is something that you'd like to say or ask, put a question to presenters to be answered at the end. You can do that by using the chat panel on the left hand side. Then with the arrows pointing and you type your comments into the field at the very bottom of the screen. 

Associate Professor Melissa Kang [00:03:18] Okay, well, I'd like to warmly introduce our two presenters today, they will be presenting together. First of those, Rebecca Christidis. Rebecca holds a master of Health Promotion from Deakin University and is currently a researcher at ReachOut Australia, one of my favourite organisations. Rebecca's work focuses on the mental health landscape of young people aged 12 to 25, and Rebecca is passionate about improving wellbeing among Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander young people and those in culturally and linguistically diverse communities. And Rebecca is going to be joined today by Doctor Sandra Garrido. Sandra completed her PhD at the University of New South Wales in 2012, and has been working as a researcher in mental health for over 15 years. Sandra has authored more than 90 academic publications and focuses on digital mental health solutions and the role of arts in wellbeing. Sandra is currently the Senior Manager of Research at ReachOut Australia. So thank you very much to you both, Rebecca and Sandra, and I'll hand over to you now to start your presentation. 

Rebecca Christidis [00:04:29] Amazing, thank you so much. Thank you for having us. And thank you, everyone for coming along or dialling in. As Melissa said, my name is Rebecca and with me is Dr Sandra Garrido, and we are presenting our research entitled 'What Parents Worry About: Carer Concerns for youth mental health and wellbeing'. Just quickly, I'd also like to acknowledge that sovereignty was never ceded and I'm currently on Gadigal Country. And I also would like to just say we're not going to get into anything too graphic, but there is a content warning as we are discussing mental health and wellbeing issues. 

Rebecca Christidis [00:05:09] So just quickly, if you haven't heard of ReachOut before. At Reach Out, we are guided by a clear and simple ambition helping young people to feel better. So 100% online and designed specifically for and with young people. ReachOut lets young people connect on their hands at any time, from anywhere. From 1 to 1 support, from experienced peer workers to online communities, as well as tips, stories, resources. ReachOut offers a wide range of support options that allow young people to engage in the ways they want to when they want to. We also have, a parent service for parents and carers of young people, as well as a school service. And just to add as well, we will be launching our report, full report for this, research tomorrow. So if you are interested in attending another webinar, you can scan and, filling your details there. 

Rebecca Christidis [00:06:14] So just a bit of background context as to why we undertook this research. So, as it says there, 40% of young people aged 16 to 24 years experienced mental health difficulties in 2020 to 2021, the highest rate of any other age group. And we also know that mental health literacy of caregivers is influential in help-seeking behaviour. And we obviously know that parents and carers are pivotal in help-seeking behaviour of their young people. I'd also add we did this work off the back of a 'youth issues' study as well. So we've got some comparisons throughout the presentation as well to compare results. 

Dr Sandra Garrido [00:07:04] So as a key provider of support for parents who are taking care of teenagers, it's really important for ReachOut to have a good understanding of parents viewpoints about the things that are impacting youth mental health and wellbeing. And so the purpose of this study, that we're reporting to you today, and the report that we are launching in full tomorrow, was to answer these research questions. We wanted to find out what are the key things that parents and carers are concerned about regarding their young people? We also wanted to know to what extent parents and carers feel like they're already equipped to deal with some of those issues and what additional supports they think would be useful to help them feel more equipped.

Dr Sandra Garrido [00:07:59] And to do this, we, put out a survey collecting qualitative and quantitative data. So, we sent out a survey by socials, a panel as well, and paid advertising, to recruit 631 parents and carers who reported they cared for a total of 921 young people, between 12 and 18 years of age. We also had, within that cohort, 12% of respondents who said that they cared for at least one First Nations young person, and 9% of the cohort, identified as Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander themselves. We had quite a good spread across the cohort as well. We heard from a wide range of parents and carers and family types. And we also had a good distribution across Australian states and territories as well as remoteness as well. 

Dr Sandra Garrido [00:09:04] So the result? What issues are parents and carers most concerned about? In this survey, we gave caregivers a huge long list of potential issues guided by the literature. Yeah, huge long list and we said: "What are you concerned about? Take as many as you like." And then from there, we ask them to select the top five that were most concerning to them. So I think, on average, we had parents and carers selecting about seven issues each. And then the top four issues I'll go through in the next slides. 

Rebecca Christidis [00:09:44] Mental health is most concerning, which again, is not a surprise. But half the cohort said that the mental health of the young person was of concern to them. And then 39% of the cohort said it was a most concerning issue. We also gave parents and carers the opportunity to tell us what is it about these issues that concern you. And depression and anxiety or among the most frequently mentioned. We also had mention of barriers to accessing professional help, and caregivers being turned away from health because the young person was in a crisis level. And I've just included a quote up there as well. Just demonstrating the impact that wellbeing can have not only on one sibling but of course the rest of the family as well. 

Dr Sandra Garrido [00:10:44] And another really big one that parents were concerned about was social media use. So about two thirds of the parents in the survey told us that social media use was a concern to them. And 35% selected this as one of their top issues that they were concerned about. And parents also felt that it was something that was having a fair bit of impact on the wellbeing and mental health of of the young people they care for. 55% told us they thought it was having quite a bit or a lot of impact on youth well-being. 

Dr Sandra Garrido [00:11:21] And this is quite interesting because, Rebecca mentioned the youth issues study that we conduct conducted in 2022, and only 4% of young people actually said that, social media was a concern to them. So there's quite a bit of difference here in the amount of concern that parents have about social media and the amount of concern that young people have. In fact, young people in our 'youth issues' survey were telling us that they were actually using social media as a way to cope with some of the bigger concerns that they had, such as cost of living and study stress, and things like that. 

Dr Sandra Garrido [00:12:02] So we also collected qualitative data where parents could explain to us more about what it was specifically about this issue that they were concerned about, and the top things that parents were worried about when it came to social media was the amount of time spent online. And they described that as being of concern to them because they felt that it was taking away from other things that young people should be doing, such as, developing the type of social skills that they would need in the real world, as parents put it, as opposed to online. They felt that it was taking away from things that are important to their health, like sleep and exercise. And they felt that it was distracting from their studies as well. 

Dr Sandra Garrido [00:12:51] But they were also concerned about online safety. So they were worried about the fact that there could be young people exposed to predators. And, that it was very difficult for parents to understand and implement all the different, tools that are built into some of these social media programs to limit the way young people are interacting with other people. And then we're also concerned about age inappropriate or harmful content. So for example, misleading content about about mental health, you know, harmful trends that young people are picking up on and following. And, we heard lots of stories about people who were concerned about their children being exposed to age inappropriate content. And it was actually mostly children of parents caring for children in the younger age group. So when their eldest child was under 15, they were the parents who seemed to be more concerned about social media, than older parents. It was also primarily, families that were living in metropolitan areas, in cities. So we did publish a little mini report just on this topic of social media earlier in the year. If you are interested in reading a little bit more detail, particularly about this issue, you can access that at the QR code on the screen. 

Rebecca Christidis [00:14:23] The next top most concerning issue was young people's future, which again, isn't a huge surprise considering everything we've seen in the media, in terms of what young people's future looks like. You know, owning a home and things like that. So we had a third of our cohort select this as a most concerning issue and almost half of the cohort as well, said young people's future is impacting quite a bit or a lot on the young person's wellbeing. And again, within the qualitative data, we found quite a few contributors to this compounding stress. So, cost of living crisis, housing affordability, employment and future employment, the political climate as well as global conflicts going on at the moment. 

Dr Sandra Garrido [00:15:22] And the fourth issue that parents seem to find most concerning was school stress or the stress that young people are experiencing in relation to exams and studying, and other things related to school. So 52% said that that was of concern to them. And it was particularly of concern to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders. I think that this was one of the top issues that came up for those families in particular. So over two thirds of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander parents were concerned about school and study stress and their impact on young people. Only 1% said that this had no impact on the young person's wellbeing. It was also particularly of concern to those living in regional and remote areas compared to people living in cities. 

Dr Sandra Garrido [00:16:17] And one of the related issues that came up there was the issue of school refusal, which was particularly of concern to people in regional and remote areas. But it was interesting that this issue also, of course, tied in with the previous one about young people being concerned about their future and parents being concerned about their futures. Because of the fact that often what young people were worried about is if they didn't do well at school, that that would, of course, impact their capacity to get a good job and provide for their families and have a good life in the future. So a lot of these of the most concerning issues were really quite, interconnected, it seemed. 

Dr Sandra Garrido [00:17:01] So in particular, some of the things that parents mentioned in the qualitative data in relation to school stress, or some of the things that seem to compound the stress around school. One was loneliness. And again, you know, that ties in with other issues as well. I think parents were often concerned that, social media use was contributing to loneliness because young people are only sort of learning how to engage with other people in that online setting and then finding it difficult to make connections when they're actually at school. School refusal, which could come down to, you know, the stress of school or other challenges that people are experiencing, like mental health issues or neurodiversity. 

Dr Sandra Garrido [00:17:46] So, a couple of really interesting quotes that came out of the qualitative data. One person said that, that the young person used to love school, but when they moved into high school, that had been very overwhelming and that had had a big impact on their mental health. And so, they were feeling lonely and depressed, which in turn then increased their anxiety about going to school. Another person commenting again on the social challenges that young people are experiencing says that this particular young person had disengaged from school and constantly worries about going. She says she doesn't fit in and it gives her stress. So there's a lot of really interconnected and compounding issues that are involved in why young people are experiencing stress in relation to school attendance. 

Rebecca Christidis [00:18:45] Here we just have a quick comparison across the board for what issues are most concerning to parents and carers and what issues are concerning to young people. And you can see there is a difference in terms of which ones are the top concern, but also a discrepancy in how they report these issues to impact well-being. So you can see that the far right column underneath the youth issues, results. All these issues are having a moderate or major impact on well-being compared to the parents and carers. So, you know, I think it's having an impact on their wellbeing. 

Rebecca Christidis [00:19:28] And so here in this next section, I'll just go through some quick 'other trends'. They were not the most concerning, but we, obviously, did find different trends across different issues. So, internet and gaming was found to be of more concern for parents of younger adolescents. As you can see, with two thirds, 66% of parents whose eldest child was under the age of 15 selected internet use. And similarly for gaming, as well, gaming was found to have an impact on well-being, as 76% reported an impact of 'quite a bit 'or 'a lot' on the young person's well-being. And again, loneliness, friendships and bullying seem to be of more concern for those in regional or remote areas. As well as loneliness being of more concern for single parent families compared to two parent families. 

Dr Sandra Garrido [00:20:36] One of the other, I guess, categories of issues that parents selected, had to do with family well-being. So some of the things that parents were concerned about there, you can see in the pink box on the right, they were concerned about the connection with the young person that they care for and the level of communication that they had between them. But there were also some big concerns that people selected, such as changes in the family, like death or divorce and domestic violence. And while these last two weren't selected by that many families, they, you know, affected a small proportion of families, these were actually the issues that had the greatest impact on well-being, which is understandable. So 91% of parents and carers who selected domestic violence, for example, said that this was having 'quite a bit' or 'a lot' of impact on the young people's well-being. 

Dr Sandra Garrido [00:21:36] And of course, understandably as well, these sorts of changes in the family were having a proportionately greater effect on single parent families, than in traditional two parent families. One participant, you know, interesting quote from them, just describing the fact that their family had been dealing with family violence. And a little bit more context for that quote, they had actually left the situation. The children were were being cared for by other family members, but they were describing the fact that this was going to impact the entire family for quite a long time to come. 

Rebecca Christidis [00:22:18] Another theme, I guess, throughout the issues, was the topic of health and lifestyle. So 79% of those who selected lifestyle habits, for example, sleep, diet, exercise. So it was impacting the young person's well-being 'quite a bit' or 'a lot'. We also found that First Nations parents and carers selected lifestyle habits as a top concern. 

Rebecca Christidis [00:22:50] And then 'identity development presents unique parenting challenges'. We found that, again, even though sexual and gender identity wasn't selected the most frequently, it was found that this was one of the issues that had the most impact on wellbeing. And then another identity related issue involves connection to Country. We found that it was more likely to be a top concern for families who spoke another language other than English at home. And again, I've just put in a quote there that I think is really nice and just speaks to, I guess, the modern parenting challenges of today. Parents want to want to be able to support their young people, but they're just not entirely sure of how to do this. 

Rebecca Christidis [00:23:39] And then lastly, I won't rattle off all of these, you can have a look it our fully, fully done launch report tomorrow, but yeah, we also had societal and behavioural concerns, that came out through the data. 

Rebecca Christidis [00:23:55] And then, how are parents and carers dealing with these issues of concern? We asked parents and carers how comfortable they are in talking to their young people about these issues that they've highlighted. And across the board, like that chart there, you know, parents are 'somewhat' or 'extremely comfortable' talking about these issues. So, okay, that's good. However, when we compared it to our youth issues, we obviously found that young people, you know, are not entirely keen on speaking to their parents and carers about the issues that concern them. And they said that they would prefer to speak to someone their own age or a professional. 

Dr Sandra Garrido [00:24:44] In terms of where parents turn for information and support. Interestingly, they're more likely to seek, I guess, informal, avenues of support. So, turning to friends and other parents. That was the most frequently selected option, or going to the internet. So it's less frequent for parents to actually be turning to professional mental health services or professional mental health workers. If they do turn to somebody with mental health expertise, it often tends to be somebody at the school, more often than other options. So that's kind of really important information for an organisation like ReachOut, because we do provide fully digital services that people can access via the internet. So, yeah, really useful to know that that is a key way that parents are getting support. 

Rebecca Christidis [00:25:50] We asked parents and carers what kinds of supports they needed in the last 12 months and if they'd access those supports. And then we also asked them if they felt that their needs were met in these different supports. So you can see that access to quality and trusted information' and 'knowing where to get help' with the two, most frequently used supports. But you can also see the lighter red shade there, that across those different types of supports, their needs were not being met. So we found that there was quite an informational needs gap, as well as parents just not knowing where to turn to, for more formalised support. 

Rebecca Christidis [00:26:32] And again, we love qualitative data. So we asked, you know, 'what else would help'? And from that we found that improved government regulation, support and education in schools, access to professional advice and services, and parental youth education and training were very much desired among among the cohort. 

Rebecca Christidis [00:26:58] So to summarise, the research and our research and the literature tells us that there are different perspectives, among parents and carers and young people for issues of concern, such as social media. As Sandra mentioned before, young people are less interested in talking to their carers about their concerns and parents and carers often seek support at crisis point. We also know about the systemic and personal barriers that parents and carers may experience. And they also would like access to better information, professional information to support the well-being of their young people. 

Dr Sandra Garrido [00:27:50] Given given those things that we know about how, parents and young people are interacting, the informational needs gap, the fact that, sometimes, again, there's this gap between, the fact that parents seem really willing to talk to their young people about some of these problems, that young people are more reluctant to talk to their parents, they'd rather look for information elsewhere. 

Dr Sandra Garrido [00:28:15] ReachOut is doing a lot of work at the moment to work out how we can better support parents and carers of young people. So, some other teams within ReachOut have been working closely with parents to identify, some of the things that they want and feel that would be helpful to them to make them feel better equipped. And, I guess, to help address some of the unique sector challenges that we have in reaching parents that Rebecca mentioned earlier, the fact that often, we found in our services, that parents tend to be less likely to seek help until they actually reach crisis point. So there's a real need to for early intervention for young people, as we know. But often parents who are the ones that are instigating that, they are less likely to jump in and look for professional help or information about how to cope for their young people until things are at much more critical stages. 

Dr Sandra Garrido [00:29:23] So some of the changes that we are working on, in our particular services, to try and address some of those needs are to provide better support for parents to understand ther young person's situation. And so again, we spoke about that sort of communication gap. It's one of the things that concerns parents is their relationship with their young people. And young people are often less willing to turn to their parents for advice. So, providing parents with a better understanding of what their young person is going through could help to bring down some of those communication barriers that seem to be there. 

Dr Sandra Garrido [00:30:06] Also helping parents to better understand how they can take action to support their young people, where they can get expert information. And we will be, you know, providing further access to expert advice, within our platforms as well, and what they can do to support their own wellbeing, because obviously that's, that's very important for parents to be able to, keep on supporting the young person. 

Dr Sandra Garrido [00:30:35] I'll just go back and say that we have a whole range of research publications that, from our research over the years, we've got reports on study stress, how cost of living is impacting young people, how loneliness is impacting young people. We've got the full Youth Issues survey that we've mentioned a couple of times. And so yeah, you can reach that page, through the QR code, or you can look for, just Google ReachOut and publications, I think. And if you are interested in knowing more, as I mentioned earlier, we have another webinar tomorrow, April 24th at 12 p.m. you can register for that here. It will be different to today's webinar. So whereas today we've been focusing on really presenting you with an idea, an overview of the research, tomorrow will be a panel discussion, led by Juanita Phillips, I think, who used to work for the ABC and, you know, other people on the the panel will include the eSafety Commissioner as well as, some academics and, and, child psychologist, people working in the youth mental health space. So, well worth joining for that expert discussion on the topic as well. And I believe that wraps up our presentation for today. You can find our email there, if you'd like to get in touch with us to, ask anything or discuss anything, we'd be happy to hear from you. 

Associate Professor Melissa Kang [00:32:27] Okay. Thank you so much, Rebecca and Sandra. And because I haven't used this platform before, I've been looking and looking for the reaction to send a round of applause. So anyway, I'm clapping, everyone's can be applauding even though we can't share an emoji about it. 

Associate Professor Melissa Kang [00:33:06] Okay. All right, look, while we're waiting for people to put in their questions, I've got a couple, I've got several, actually. It was very thought-provoking. I think I will start by asking about how you interpret that huge disparity between parents and carers, concerns about social media and young people's concerns. I mean, there's kind of these obvious things that come to mind about growing up with social media and so on. But I just wondered if, particularly at ReachOut, where you're so familiar with digital technologies and how young people engage with them, what were your thoughts as the researchers in interpreting that big disparity? 

Dr Sandra Garrido [00:33:58] Yeah, that's a really good question and we have actually just finished conducting another big study which is looking specifically at that. And I think it does probably come down to quite a lot about what you said, really. So, that people, they didn't grow up with social media themselves and there's a lot of media attention, even in the academic literature, really, the focus is on the potential harms for social media. And obviously they exist and are of concern, and young people need support with those things. But it is also, what we're finding in our research, is that there are some benefits that young people are able to get from engaging with social media, and we hope that with the right support and the right education, such as these coming out from the, the eSafety Commission, parents and young people can can learn how to navigate those challenges, with more success. But again, I think it does sort of come down to that intergenerational divide, young people are seeing the benefits, less so than the challenges. And, parents are probably mostly focusing on the challenges and, maybe less familiar with a lot of the platforms that their young people use and not aware of the potential benefits. 

Associate Professor Melissa Kang [00:35:21] Yeah. Because, I mean, it's a way of, I mean, it is it's not unreal, it's not artificial, it's it's actually a way of engaging with real humans and peers and so on, isn't it? I mean, as a parent who was pre-smartphones when my kids were young, it's completely foreign to me, I think. I mean, I do have social media pages, but, you know, I think the extent with which young people a kind of integrate all parts of their lives with social media, online communications and, you know, in real life form, face-to-face is just part of everyday life now. 

Associate Professor Melissa Kang [00:35:59] We have a we have a great question: "Thanks for sharing the interesting findings of your research. Just wondering if the stigma around mental health concerns was mentioned by the participants?"

Rebecca Christidis [00:36:13] That's a good question. I, off the top of my head, I don't believe it was mentioned too much. I think it was less stigma, more so just a lack of an understanding, for want of a better term, a of lack of understanding what's going on for that young person. I think, again, that speaks to the gap, sort of, in communication that we found, where obviously guardians want to support their young people in any way that they can, they're just not entirely sure of how to do it. So I think enabling parents and carers to feel supported or feel empowered in how they can approach their young person is really important to get those conversations going. But not too much about stigma, which I think is a good thing. But that could be a whole other report in itself. 

Associate Professor Melissa Kang [00:37:08] Yeah. I mean, was that a surprising thing that it didn't get mentioned? 

Rebecca Christidis [00:37:11] Yeah, actually, now that I think about it, that is a very good question. It was surprising that that wasn't mentioned too much. 

Associate Professor Melissa Kang [00:37:46] Another question: "What strategies or approaches have been identified to be effective to build mental health literacy for parents and carers?" 

Dr Sandra Garrido [00:37:57] One of the things that that our internal teams, that are working on reshaping our programs, have been finding is that obviously, parents are really time poor and they haven't necessarily always got time to go online and be educated about a whole variety of things. They're often looking for short information, short pieces of information about specific issues that they're facing. And often the sorts of resources that are available for parents are more sort of broad, in general. And they might be about, you know, parenting strategies and things like that. So I think one of the things that we're working on is providing information on some of these specific issues that parents are concerned about, in short, digestible formats. Just to to give parents really accessible, ways to get the information that they need given their busy lives and all the things that they're juggling. 

Associate Professor Melissa Kang [00:39:01] If you don't mind me following on from that because I'm  a little bit familiar with some of the evaluation that RaachOut does with its young people, but not so much with adults that you reach out to as well. So is there much evaluation done with, you know, the parents and carers, interventions or you know, even just that the engagement with the pages on the website and so on. What could you just tell us a bit about that? 

Dr Sandra Garrido [00:39:31] We have we have done some evaluation of that. And I think, the findings relate to some of the things that we mentioned earlier. Parents seem to be very different in the sorts of services that they want to young people. So, for example, our chat services with young people are quite popular. They really enjoy that. Parents seem to be less interested in that, sort of, peer connection. They can do that on Facebook, I guess. But they are interested in expert advice. An expert doesn't necessarily need to be a mental health professional. Can often be perhaps a parent who has lived through similar things. So, that's one of the things that we're finding less interested in that peer-to-peer connection and more interested in just getting expert information. So, that's one of the key things that we found there. 

Associate Professor Melissa Kang [00:40:32] Good, interesting. And there's a question: "Sorry, I may have missed it, but could you speak more about how you recruited participants?" I know you mentioned that right at the start.

Rebecca Christidis [00:40:41]  So we recruited via our social media as well as, sector contacts. And we also didn't want to have just, you know, ReachOut parents, so we also used a panel to recruit participants as well. 

Associate Professor Melissa Kang [00:40:55] Great, thank you. And a really good question about Covid 19: "Can you comment on how the pandemic may have changed or exacerbated concerns held by parents and children?" It's a few questions here. "Are there notable differences in the types of concerns raised now, post-pandemic, compared to during or before? And do you think there is some hangover effects of the pandemic? On social outcomes, educational engagement and mental health?" 

Rebecca Christidis [00:41:25] Yeah, definitely. We definitely had, I guess, reports of young people sort of struggling to adjust back into the in-person school situation, which made it really difficult for them, as well as the switch, I guess, during the pandemic, learning to switch entirely to an online format and communicating with young people. And again, I think that sort of adds to the gap between young people and their carers, where young people are now relying on social media for, you know, the social connections and things like that, whereas parents and carers might not necessarily have that point of view. So again, I think the Covid pandemic definitely exacerbated that. I will say, though, I think it was surprising to me to not see so many mentions of the pandemic, which, personally, it's a good thing, because I'm ready to forget about it. So that definitely was in terms of schooling and social, in a social aspect, there were mentions of it. Thank you. 

Associate Professor Melissa Kang [00:42:31] Okay. I need more time for more questions, everyone. So, please, please keep posting them. I wanted to ask about loneliness. That was in one of your slides and while you were presenting that slide, I googled when it was that the World Health Organisation declared loneliness a global concern, which was late last year. I wonder myself if that's something to do with the pandemic as well or not. Whether it's just modern life, but just your thoughts on loneliness, as a parent concern. But also, how does that sit with what young people's concerns are? Is there a disparity, or do you think it's similar parents' concerns about their children being lonely and young people reporting being lonely. 

Dr Sandra Garrido [00:43:27] Yeah, I don't I don't recall having compared those to statistics, but, just off the top of my head, I know that it was one of the big concerns for young people. So we have a report on that, from our Youth Issue survey available on the website. It wasn't prominent, for parents, it wasn't a prominent issue. And it was often raised in the context of social media and just a very big concern that parents had that, yeah, loneliness was being exacerbated by the fact that people are online and the gaming and internet, so much of the time. 

Associate Professor Melissa Kang [00:44:08] Yeah, it's interesting, I mean, it's an interesting phenomenon, this, you know, and I think, perhaps a reflection of my age, but  hearing loneliness becoming a real issue in older people as well. There is a great question here: "I recall you mentioned that parents raised concerns of a lack of access to support services. Also, it was said that parents and carers are accessing services as a at crisis point. What are your thoughts about the relationship between these two factors?" 

Rebecca Christidis [00:44:44] Yeah, that is a good question. I think, again, this speaks to, I guess, the informational need of parents and carers. We did fin from the literature, I should, say that parents and carers, you know, don't access or tend to not access support until crisis point. Whereas we did have reports, within our qualitative data of parents and carers being turned away. However, I think it speaks a lot to mental health literacy and being able to understand what's going on for young people prior to outward symptoms being shown. So, and I know that is quite a tricky concept to grasp, but, knowing, I guess, when is a good time to seek help.  It doesn't have to be when my young person is completely withdrawn or whatever the situation may be, but I think it just speaks to, like I said, the mental health literacy, as well as understanding the young person and the communication, there's so many parts to it. But ultimately, I think it comes down to knowing that it's okay to access information or support, or whatever you might need prior to, you know, going into emergency or whatever it might be. 

Associate Professor Melissa Kang [00:46:06] I've wondered this myself, but working with vulnerable and marginalised, and disadvantaged young people for all of my career and also doing research on that on health care access with young people from different priority populations, what I've seen over, getting more so over the years, is that it's harder to actually access, even general practice sometimes. Various appointments, waiting times and that they are presenting in crisis. That's, that's sort of, some of the young people I've seen. And I wonder if that's reflected in, you know, what parents are doing or whether it's more about parents not recognising. I think the young people recognise that they have issues, but they can't access well-developed care, whereas perhaps parents, it might be a lack of appreciating that something is going on and then it's time to do something. Yeah, just a thought. 

Rebecca Christidis [00:47:05] Yeah, I know for sure. And I definitely don't want to, I guess put the onus on parents or downgrade in any way. But I think without sort of parents research that we still have going on as well, we are working with parents and carers to find out what it is that would be most effective and would be most helpful in the situations where they're not sure about what's going on for their young person and or, you know, seems a little bit withdrawn. The idea being that we would love to be able to provide support as early as possible, to avoid the crisis that they may experience. And again, you know, obviously, the systemic barriers to seeking any help support is just another level. But we definitely want to provide parents with empowering information and support to help them understand what's going on for the young person. 

Dr Sandra Garrido [00:47:58] Yeah, great. Some of the other things that have been coming up in our more recent conversations with parents as well is the fact that, you know, so much of the, I guess, the narrative that we hear in the media often about teenagers that are struggling, almost puts the blame at the parent's doorstep. And so often there's a reluctance for parents to seek help elsewhere because there's a feeling that the, you know, that they're to blame. And so often parents, it seems, are sort of trying to deal with things a lot on their own in isolation, which perhaps explains why they're more often turning to the internet as sources of information. It's something, as for young people, it's something that they can access anonymously, and can try and find the information that they need without having to share their concerns with anybody else. 

Associate Professor Melissa Kang [00:48:57] Yeah, that's a really good point. You know, it's stigmatising for a young person to think they might have a mental health problem, but it's really stigmatising as well for parents who might feel that they've failed their child somehow. . 

[00:49:12] Another question: "Thank you for the presentation. I'm wondering if there were any findings or concerns around young people who are in caring roles themselves, for example, those who may be supporting a sibling or another parent with disability, mental ill health, alcohol or other drug dependence, etc.?"

Dr Sandra Garrido [00:49:31] I don't think that there was. Correct me if I'm wrong, Rebecca. I can't recall any of that. Yeah, particularly not in this study, which was mostly about parents. But yeah, even in our youth issues, I don't recall anything about that. But that's a really interesting point. I also did notice a question from somebody earlier that I'm not sure if we addressed, which was about whether there are any differences between foster and kinship care responses. And I guess the short answer to that was no, we did sort of look at those, whether there were significant differences between different family groups. The biggest differences that came out were between two parent families and single parent or blended families. We didn't have as many responses from those, you know, less common family compositions. 

Associate Professor Melissa Kang [00:50:25] Apologies for missing that. I have I had a question about one of your slides, which where the parents had, checked that they wanted improved government regulation as a solution to something. Was that to do with social media or, what was that about? I didn't quite understand. 

Dr Sandra Garrido [00:50:59] Yeah. That was mostly in relation to their concerns about social media. 

Associate Professor Melissa Kang [00:51:03] Yeah. Okay. 

Dr Sandra Garrido [00:51:04] Absolutely. Yeah. That was from the qualitative data. 

Associate Professor Melissa Kang [00:51:07] Yeah. Right. I see okay. Yes, I guess, that's an ongoing kind of discourse and debate, isn't it? More or less or different. Yeah. I mean, can I ask what  ReachOut generally, what is the thought about government regulation? And, you know, I guess anything digital really, but maybe social media in particular?

Dr Sandra Garrido [00:51:37] Yes. Well, I don't know that we have a thought. We're really interested at the moment, I think, in that perspective that young people can obtain some important mental health benefits from being on social media and on those digital platforms. That seems to be the way young people feel. And for us at ReachOut the perspectives of young people, are how we govern and how we operate. So to us, in fact, in the more recent study, which, you know, you might be hearing more about in 3 or 4 months, we've asked young people themselves what needs to be done. And that to me, that's really where the answers to those questions should come from is from young people themselves. And some of them are saying, yes, there needs to be more government regulation. Others are putting the onus on the platforms themselves. And others are saying, the content creators on some of these platforms need to be taking more responsibility and be taking more care about what they present. And the consumer needs to have better information so that they are able to make judgements about what sort of information is helpful and you know, how to handle difficult online social situations as well. So I think, the short answer to the question is we intend to work very closely with young people over the coming months to help work out what are the best answers to that question.

Associate Professor Melissa Kang [00:53:11] I mean, RachOut, it's always just been a few or many steps ahead of everybody, really. But in terms of, you know, really, really being able to understand not only the technology side of digital technology, but the way young people engage with it, for living, you know, it's sort of just, part of their the universe. 

Associate Professor Melissa Kang [00:53:36] I wrote down lots of questions while you talking, so, I don't want to hog this spot if I can't see any new questions, so I will ask. I think it might be my last one. I noticed in one of your slides that, a parent had commented on the transition from primary school to secondary school as when their child really changed. And we know that that transition can be really difficult for some young people. And I just wondered, this isn't so much about your research, it's more about you, as, you know, kind of experts in youth mental health. But what are your thoughts on the current school system in Australia, which is different? You know, it's different in other countries, similar in different [ways]. But in terms of that huge difference between primary school and secondary school, should we have a middle school kind of set up the way they as they do in some other countries? Should there be? it's it's so vastly different in many ways. And, doesn't really allow for a transition period, which coincides with, I guess, adolescence and puberty and all those other changes and brain changes that are going on. I just wondered if you had an opinion about, you know, that bigger picture school system? 

Dr Sandra Garrido [00:55:07] I don't know that I have an opinion. My, oldest son transitioned to high school two years ago. Yeah. And, it went went more smoothly than I thought it might have. 

Associate Professor Melissa Kang [00:55:23]  It probably really does for most.

Dr Sandra Garrido [00:55:25] Yeah, I, I think that, I haven't really ever thought about the concept of a middle school. Middle school in an Australian context, but I think, he just went into a normal public school for high school. And they did have a very good sort of transition program there. Lots of information for parents, lots of information for young people. But I think it's the environment in which [they are]  suddenly with children that are a lot older, that really has the biggest impact on changes in their behaviour and their attitudes and, and things like that. So. Yeah. I don't know, maybe something like middle school is a good idea just to slow that down a little bit. 

Associate Professor Melissa Kang [00:56:10] Yeah. Okay. Thank you. We've got a couple more minutes, everybody. If anyone has one last question. I was going to ask you this is completely, random and more sort of administrative or technical. But when ReachOut does research, does it have its own ethics governance committee or does it use other? 

Rebecca Christidis [00:56:35] Yeah, that is a very good question and that was a point that I had on my notes, but I didn't say. We were going through, a Human Research Ethics Committee. So this study was obviously approved for that as well. Yeah, we definitely do. Whenever we look at, you know, potentially harmful topics, we will reach out to the Human Research Ethics Committee just to make sure that, you know, we've got those. 

Associate Professor Melissa Kang [00:57:02] Is that an in-house Committee?

Rebecca Christidis [00:57:04] No, it's, an external committee.

Associate Professor Melissa Kang [00:57:08] Is ithat within a university?

Rebecca Christidis [00:57:12] No, it's the Bellbery Human Research Ethics Committee. They're in Adelaide. 

Associate Professor Melissa Kang [00:57:17] But no, it's just curious, you know, because I thought, working in university, I live and breathe ethics committees, and I just wondered. 

Associate Professor Melissa Kang [00:57:24] Look, we have we do have a question. It can be the last. "When young people talked about referring to online services for information, did they mention mental health service providers or just the platforms such as Facebook?" 

Rebecca Christidis [00:57:41] Bit of a mixed bag in those responses. However, as Sandra said, we're currently undertaking research looking at this specific area. And again, a little nugget of findings from that is that it is very varied, in terms of how they refer to digital platforms. Definitely not as much of a mention of Facebook anymore. And it seems that social media platforms have sort of overtaken the Google search engine.

Associate Professor Melissa Kang [00:58:22] That's interesting. Yes. I see. 

Dr Sandra Garrido [00:58:26]  I was just gonna say people are interested in knowing more about that research as it comes out, probably, if they were to follow ReachOut on LinkedIn, that would be a good way to stay notified when we have some of those those findings about young people on digital platforms coming out. 

Associate Professor Melissa Kang [00:58:45] Okay. We're squeezing in one last question, and I think we have 60 seconds. "Services are available to support parents or young people that are in between online information and seeing a psychologist. Would this be things like kids helpline, youth health services or is there a gap?"

Dr Sandra Garrido [00:59:05] Yes, we do have a peer chat support service for young people so they can get online. They're speaking to a young person like themselves, but one who has received some training and mentoring in supporting other young people. So that's kind of a really nice gap. And we do have parents communities at the moment, but we're also looking more at those options of, sort of, connecting parents with expert advice that will be personalised in some way to address the particular needs that they're concerned about. So, yeah, those are the sorts of things we're continuing to work on developing for parents. 

Associate Professor Melissa Kang [00:59:45] Fantastic. I think we're probably going to have to wind up. So to jump on the ReachOut website, it's full of incredible information. I use that all the time when I'm looking something up myself, whether it's just some information or about services. Could we please have another round of applause for our wonderful presenters. And thank you, everybody for all your great questions as well. And look forward to seeing you back at the next webinar. Thanks again to Rebecca and Sandra. 

Dr Sandra Garrido [01:00:14] Thank you so much.