social and emotional wellbeing

What is the impact of cultural disconnection on social & emotional wellbeing? If culture provides the context within which we define ourselves, and defines the needs that motivate us, needs which progress through a hierarchy to self actualization and self-transcendence, then it stands to reason that someone who has been disconnected from their culture will be impeded from achieving those needs. As the relevance of culture to needs becomes greater the higher up the hierarchy we go then people who have been disconnected from their culture are likely to be constrained to the lower levels of motivation. At its extreme this would mean they would find it difficult to go beyond the first level of survival needs because little else would have any meaning without the context that culture provides.

Outcomes: social and emotional wellbeing Participants completed the Strong Souls tool, which has been developed and validated as culturally appropriate for assessing the social and emotional wellbeing of adolescents par- ticipating in the ABC Study, and described in detail elsewhere. 20 This 25-item tool includes four factors: anxiety (six items), depression (seven items), suicide risk (three items) and resilience (nine items). Questions about resil- ience relate to social and family support, positive affect, and knowledge of “whitefella” ways. An overall mental health score is calcu- lated by adding the anxiety, depression and suicide-risk factor scores. Because they showed non-normality (see Results), each Strong Souls factor was dichotomised at its median and coded as a binary variable (1 = factor present, 0 = not present). An alternative coding of each factor into tertiles was also undertaken.

NEP local co-researchers worked with groups in the community and hosted events to achieve positive outcomes for families and community through the CSEWB program. They also worked with the CRG to identify other programs and activities to address social and emotional wellbeing (SEWB) outside of the scheduled six- week program. Such activities included life skills programs, planning major community events, cultural camps, and healing programs. Where possible, existing local services in the Queensland sites were engaged to deliver relevant activities, such as Mental Health First Aid Training and Leadership Training.

evaluative reports between 2002 and 2007. By applying ‘meta-ethnography’ to the five studies, we identified four themes which provide new interpretations of the data. Self-reported benefits included improved social and emotional wellbeing, modest lifestyle modifications and willingness to change current notions of “gendered” roles within the home, such as sharing housework. Our qualitative research to date suggests that through promoting empowerment, wellbeing and social cohesion for men and their families, men’s support groups may be saving costs through reduced expenditure on health care, welfare, and criminal justice costs, and higher earnings.

Abstract This paper explores Indigenous Australian women’s understanding of wellness, through the lens of social and emotional wellbeing. The authors use a “yarning” approach to explore how well- ness is important to Indigenous women who live in North Brisbane (Australia). They discuss the benefits of yarning and its strength as a methodology for conducting research and building activism within Indigenous Australian communities. They argue that, for Indigenous Australian women, wellness is linked to a sense of wholeness and strongly related to the feeling of connec- tion that women get from meeting together and having time for women’s business. They describe the way that their research project developed into a community summit focused on Indigenous women’s wellness.

cluster research. Suicide clusters have been identified but without the same public health response that, for example, an outbreak of measles demands. A proposed model of response to a serious suicide attempt or a completed suicide is a comprehensive ‘contact tracing’ of the victim’s family, friends and cluster group members. It is suggested that after a serious suicide attempt or completed suicide is identified within a defined population, a comprehensive follow- up of those at risk of imitation is undertaken within the social network but in a culturally appropriate way. The high suicide rate among Indigenous young people is attributed to a range of complex and interrelated historical, political, economic, structural, and social factors that continue to impact on the younger generations of Indigenous people. Many Indigenous young people are disproportionately exposed to grief, trauma, loss and discrimination which greatly affect their social and emotional wellbeing. Many also experience a range of negative impacts associated with chronic economic disadvantage, lack of access to appropriate support services, ongoing discrimination by the criminal justice, limited educational and employment opportunities, loss of Elders and other adult family members and mentors due to early deaths or imprisonment. Indigenous youth are also directly impacted by very high rates of psychological distress and exposure to life stressors. In the Australian Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Health Survey (2012-13), Indigenous young people aged 15 – 24 years report the most frequent stressors experienced are family member or friend dying (31%); unemployment – not being able to gain work (24%); sever health problems (19%);

The positive effects of We Al-li on the social and emotional wellbeing of workshop participants have been documented (Atkinson 2002); however, there have been no published evaluations of the impact of the program at the community level. Marumali is a workshop-based program that trains counsellors to help Indigenous people who were removed from their families as children. All workshop participants are required to have previous formal training or work experience as counsellors. As well as training Indigenous counsellors, workshops have been developed to train non-Indigenous mental health practitioners to work in partnership with Indigenous counsellors.

work schedules and this causes stress for the family (Barnett, Gareis & Brennan 2008; Davis et al. 2008; Liu et al. 2011), which in turn may lead to adverse child outcomes. We hypothesized that stress and strain would in part mediate the negative impact of unpredictable and precarious work schedules on child wellbeing, but the quantitative finding did not support this hypothesis. Our qualitative findings suggest that even though stress was a feature of the families where parents work nonstandard shifts and schedules, some families coped with the stress better than others, depending on resources available to them. Thus stress may be the mediator only in families which have no or limited resources to cope with stress. Future research should take this into consideration, using a larger sample. Taken together, our quantitative and qualitative findings regarding stress as a mechanism linking nonstandard work schedules to child social and emotional wellbeing can be better understood in light of the conceptual resource framework (Brooks-Gunn et al. 1995) which emphasizes that for optimal child development, it is the quality and mix of different familial and extra familial resources (income, time, parents’ social capital and mental wellbeing), but not a single domain of these resources, that matter. In some families stress caused by nonstandard work schedules can be mitigated with other domains of family resources, such as income, time and capacity of the other parent (who works standard day hours in part-time) to organize everyday life for the family or extensive support from grandparents.

for ethical conduct in Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander health research (Values and ethics) describes key values that should underpin Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander (Indigenous)–focused health research. It is unclear how research teams address this document in primary health care research. We systematically review the primary health care literature focusing on Indigenous social and emotional wellbeing (SEWB) to identify how Values and ethics and community preferences for standards of behaviour (local protocols) are addressed during research.

Primary health care services are considered the ‘frontline’ of the health system and are well positioned to identify and manage problems relating to social and emotional wellbeing (SEWB). The high rates of suicide and psychological distress among Indigenous people 11 call for a particular focus on ensuring that SEWB care is effective, evidence based and acceptable. Research provides the framework to explore and assess SEWB care. Many Indigenous-focused primary health care services have programs or teams focusing on providing SEWB care. These services are often part of research teams involving primary health care staff, community members and externally located researchers, who collaborate to conduct SEWB research. 12 Particular consideration of this research is needed because of the

Study type: Systematic review in accordance with PRISMA and MOOSE guidelines. Methods: Four databases and one Indigenous-specific project website were searched for qualitative, quantitative and mixed-method published research. Studies that were conducted in primary health care services and focused on the social and emotional wellbeing of Indigenous people were included. Scientific quality was assessed using risk-of-bias assessment tools that were modified to meet our aims. We assessed community acceptance by identifying the involvement of community governance structures and representation during research development, conduct and reporting. Data were extracted using standard forms developed for this review.

inTroducTion 1.2 Why focus on Youth Social and Emotional Wellbeing Evidence of mental ill-health and social and emotional problems among Australia’s Indigenous young people can be found across most measures of health, education, employment and involvement in the justice system. Countering this are the reports of programs and projects that have assisted Indigenous young people to succeed in life by overcoming adversity and building strength and resilience. Such initiatives, whilst they do exist, often struggle for recognition and in attracting continued funding. Improving Indigenous youth SEWB requires learning from and building on these positive initiatives by documenting them systematically, identifying the factors critical to their success, and investing in programs that enhance the health and wellbeing of Indigenous young people. Such investment will also contribute to the future survival and growth of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander families, communities and culture.

Abstract Objective: Addressing the continued health disparities between Australia’s Indigenous and non-Indigenous peoples requires a multi-sector approach in which the discipline of psychology has a central role. These disparities are partially driven by a lack of culturally appropriate methods of health delivery. The current study aimed to explore urban Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders’ perceptions of health and wellbeing through a social emotional wellbeing and strengths-based frameworks.

Dutch population. More than 90% of all families with children frequently visit PCH. The newly implemented family-centered approach aims to build a trustful and supportive relationship with parents and to empower parenting skills, with the aim of enhancing children’s developmental context. Next to these more general relational and participatory princi- ples, the family-centered approach incorporates a sys- tematic component, reflected by the use of a checklist to identify risk and protective factors for infants’ social- emotional development [10]. Contents of the checklist are based on the bio-ecological model of Bronfenbrenner, which describes the factors that influence human develop- ment at different levels, taking into account both the child and its developmental context, and the interaction be- tween the two [11]. In the family-centered approach, the bio-ecological model is reflected in the following domains related to children’s social-emotional wellbeing: compe- tence of the parent, role of the partner, social support, life events within the care giving context, and wellbeing of the child. Using the information on all domains, PCH profes- sionals draw an overall conclusion about the child’ s social- emotional wellbeing.

5.4 Implications of the Findings The importance of identifying discreet techniques of how successful evidence-based interventions work is key to recognising the potential of future successful interventions, alongside increasing the impact of existing ones. The research aimed to identify what social and emotional curriculum is being used and to share it more formally and consistently across NGs nationwide. There is scope for this research to be generalisable to the same population in different settings, so children and young people presenting with social and emotional difficulties in schools could benefit from a specified curriculum for the area. This presents opportunities for the development of cost effective, wide reaching strategies and interventions to be made accessible to more children. NGs are already in a mainstream context and successfully integrate pupils back into mainstream. Part-time NGs are also significantly beneficial, and action at policy level has positive impacts on pupils. This all supports that the transfer of the identified skills and themes in this research project has potential to benefit a larger number of children and young people.

Beauchemin et al. (2008) hypothesised that MM would be effective in reducing anxiety and improving social skills amongst students with learning disabilities. Interestingly, and different to most mindfulness research in schools, the MM sessions were led by the usual class teachers after they had received a two hour introduction to MM from an experienced instructor. Pre- and post- intervention measures were taken. Consistent with other studies self-report measures predominated, however there was also the inclusion of a measure that used both student and teacher ratings of social skills. Beauchemin et al. reported that students’ social skills improved and anxiety decreased from pre- to post-intervention. Students, parents and teachers responded positively to the intervention and student questionnaires revealed an overwhelming satisfaction with the MM programme. Some limitations of this study were the teachers not being blind to the test conditions, the small number of participants and a lack of a control group. Sadly a lack of detail about the type of activities used in MM means that comparison to other studies is problematic.

family wellbeing; personal and community development; Aboriginal stories about kidney disease; psychosocial problems of adolescents; Aboriginal self; wellbeing in the context of dr[r]

Conclusion The current study has added to the evidence of TT as an effective method for reducing psychological distress and increasing well-being and social participation in Indian survivors of TOV. Sharing their trauma story through the testimony process improved the survivors’ psychosocial functioning and enabled them to advance on the path to recovery, accepting new responsibilities and regaining satisfactory functioning in their families and environment. Furthermore, it appears that TT has a positive impact at the community level by promoting community empowerment. This study provides the foundation for further research on this aspect, such as controlled trials to determine the effect of TT on individual- and commu- nity outcome measures.

The strongest and most consistent association was found for BMI and peer relationship problems among Q1 and Q2 boys and girls. This finding extends beyond the findings of previous studies that have reported an association between BMI and overweight, and peer relationship problems among young children [10,14], adolescents [11,30], and 8–9-year-olds [31]. There are several potential reasons for this observed finding. For example, overweight children are more likely to experience teasing and stigmatisation from peers which can result in social marginalisation and low self-esteem [32,33]. Intuitively, being overweight and physically inactive in childhood is likely to be a stronger predictor of peer relationship problems than being overweight alone, as peer problems and victimisation are associated with low activity [33] as well as weight status [34]. Stearns et al. [30] found that peer victimisation did not mediate the relationship between overweight and MVPA in adolescent boys and girls, but observed a partial mediation for screen-time. Positive peer relations are central to healthy psychological, social and emotional child development and functioning [35,36]. Further research is needed to explore potential mediators, such as self-esteem which can result from overweight and low activity, and lead to disproportional sedentary time.

Keywords: Racism, Social and emotional wellbeing, Mental health, Aboriginal Australian children, Childhood Background The concept of racism corresponds to a set of attitudes, be- haviours and practices that maintain an imbalance in the distribution of power across ethnic-racial groups [1]. Ra- cism is the oppression of specific ethnic-racial groups in as- sociation with maintaining the privileges of others, fostering and perpetuating social disparities [2]. At an insti- tutional level, racism can be observed through historical and structural inequalities in socioeconomic indicators, and educational and health parameters. In its interpersonal facet, racism permeates daily interactions, with negative