Thursday 23 May
9pm AEST

Via the ReachOut.com forums: http://forums.au.reachout.com/t5/ReachOut-com-presents/INFOBUS-Addressing-the-stigma-of-self-injury/m-p/37846#U37846

Next Thursday the 23rd May we're welcoming Sarah Swannell to the ReachOut.com youth forums as this month's guest professional. Sarah will be participating in an informal discussion about the stigma of self-injury, becoming more aware of thoughts and emotions, different ways of coping that don't include self-injury as well as how to support a friend or loved one who engages with self-injury.

Young people can submit an anonymous question for her to answer during the session at this link: http://supportgroup.wufoo.com/forms/m7x3z9/

About Sarah

Sarah is a registered psychologist. She works with individuals one-on-one as well as running therapeutic groups in Brisbane. Sarah is also a Senior Researcher in the Department of Psychiatry at the University of Queensland.

One of Sarah's main clinical interests is self-destructive behaviours - like suicidality, self-harm, eating disorders, substance abuse, and other impulsive behaviours. Sarah's work has been published nationally and internationally and she has presented at both national and international psychology conferences.

Self-harm resources

For resources you can give to young people about self-harm, visit our mental health resources section.

Forum facts

Three positives of today continues to be our most popular positive psych activity getting close to it's 500th post. http://forums.au.reachout.com/t5/Everyday-life-stuff/Three-positives-of-today/td-p/300/jump-to/first-unread-message

Did you know that since the ReachOut.com site relaunched last year we've had over 1.6 million user sessions in the forums?

The annual ReachOut.com national survey conducted by the Inspire Foundation has found that young people in distress look for help online rather than seek help from a mental health professional. The cross-sectional study of 3,600 young people under 25 found that 75% of participants were experiencing high to very high levels of psychological distress at the time of visiting ReachOut.com, yet the majority of them (60%) had never accessed professional help.

The survey looked at who uses ReachOut.com, why they use it, whether they feel it has improved their mental health, and whether it has changed their attitude to seeking help.

In quotes:

Jonathan Nicholas, Chief Executive Officer of the Inspire Foundation, said, "Young people sometimes may not recognise that they need help. Asking for help may feel uncomfortable, or they may not know where to find help or what to expect from the range of services that are out there."

"That is why it is so important that young people have a place to go that they can trust, that is anonymous and non-confronting, and available to them whenever they need it, at any time of the day or night," said Nicholas.

A 22-year-old girl using ReachOut.com said, "It took a long time, but by posting online I found the encouragement and confidence I needed to seek face-to-face support. I eventually went to see my GP and she referred me to other health professionals who have helped me overcome the terrible depression and anxiety I felt for most of my teenage years."

Read on for some of the interesting highlights from the survey.

Who uses ReachOut.com

The survey results showed that the average age of participants was 16.8 years. Interestingly, 24% of survey respondents identifies as lesbian, gay, bisexual, queer or other diverse sexualities, and 29% came from rural and regional areas of Australia (based on postcode analysis).

Psychological distress

The majority of young people who access ReachOut.com (75%) are experiencing high or very high levels of psychological distress, based on responses to the Kessler 10 (K10) scale. These figures are significantly higher than observed in general youth population surveys (9%) and suggest that ReachOut.com is engaging young people who are likely to be experiencing moderate to sever mental health difficulties.

What they use

Fact sheets (78%) and stories (51%) continue to be the most commonly used features of the website, with the discussion forums used by 19% of respondents.

The top 10 topics viewed are:

1. Mental health difficulties
2. Mood disorders
3. Safety + violence
4. Workplace bullying
5. Alcohol+ other drugs

Main reasons for visiting

54% of respondents indicated they were going through a tough time and looking for help. Just under half of respondents (48%) indicated that they were looking for information or support for some aspect related to mental health difficulties. Of these, 40.6% referred specifically to depression and 34.4% referred to anxiety disorders. A small proportion (14%) also described seeking information about suicide and/or self-harm.

Impact

Most young people who reported visiting ReachOut.com during a 'tough time' said that it provided the information they needed (91%) and that it helped them deal with the issue they were experiencing (72%). Of those experiencing high levels of distress, 60% reported that they had not sought help from professional services. Encouragingly, after using ReachOut.com 29% of this subsample said they were more likely to seek help from a medical doctor, and 41% said they were more likely to seek help from a counsellor, therapist or other mental health professional after visiting ReachOut.com.

78% of young people said they would tell a friend going through a tough time about ReachOut.com.

Accessing the report

The full report is available from the Inspire Foundation website. Click here to access the report.

Following on from research conducted last year into the needs of health and education professionals, we have decided to merge our two professional resource websites (ReachOut Pro and ReachOut Teachers Network) into one website.

This means that we will instead provide one central place to access resources for supporting young people's mental health in both the classroom and support settings.

Why the change?

Research into the needs of psychologists, medical professionals, support workers and education professionals found that there is a lot of cross-over in the content that professionals need from ReachOut.com. Additionally, some people reported confusion about the difference between the websites and where to go for the best information. Many more reported that they went straight to ReachOut.com when looking for resources - rather than looking for seperate professional resource websites.

To make things simpler, and to make it easier to give you access to the full range of professional resources we have, we'll be putting them all together in one central place.

Introducing ReachOut.com Professionals

ReachOut.com Professionals will be launching in the coming months, and will have content particularly relevant for support workers and education professionals that are looking for additional resources to use with young people they are working with.

Included in the new website will be:

• Information on youth mental health and links to ReachOut.com resources to use with young people
• Information on referring young people to appropriate services for their personal context
• Recommended mental health apps and tools that are available for young people
• Resources for teaching skills for mental health and wellbeing in the classroom
• Professional development resources for improving your professional knowledge in youth mental health and online services

How to stay connected

When the new website goes live in the coming months, you will need to resubscribe if you wish to continue receiving newsletters from ReachOut.com. You will also be able to register to access new professional development resources on the website.

To get notified when the new site goes live, with instructions on updating your details, make sure you are subscribed to the ReachOut Pro newsletter.

To assist professionals to do this safely and effectively, the Young and Well Cooperative Research Centre have released a new Better Practice Guide for using technology in youth services.

The project to develop the guide was led by the NSW Centre for the Advancement of Adolescent Health, and supported by the University of Sydney's Prometheus research group. The guide was launched via a webinar tutorial that answered professionals' questions on the key difficulties that arise when using technology in youth service delivery.

Watch the webinar recording ↓

Find out more about the project |  Watch on Vimeo to jump to a section of the video

Assoc. Professor Jane Burns, CEO of the Young and Well CRC said:

"The Better Practice Guide is an invaluable resource for supporting youth health professionals to develop online services that are safe and engaging for young people - including in clinical settings."

"Importantly, the guide outlines the evidence base for dismantling structural barriers to achieving policy and practice change regarding the use of technologies in clinical settings."

Read the news item

The guide is available as a PDF or as an online resource.

Download the Guide as a PDF

Access the online version of the Guide

For guidance on putting these examples into practice, and more information on young people's online world, visit the Professional Development section of ReachOut Pro.

This week we're hosting a special guest on the ReachOut.com forums. A case manager from the youth sexuality and gender support service Twenty10 will be hosting a discussion on accessing a youth service for the first time - covering what you can expect, fears, and how to get the best outcomes.

Encourage young people to watch the conversation or ask their questions!

WHEN: Thursday 28 March, 2013 - 9pm AEST

WHERE: http://bit.ly/10HYrHN

Help seeking resources

On ReachOut.com we've developed resources to help young people understand when they might need to seek professional support, who to go to, and how to manage problems they encounter while help seeking. Check out some of our top resources:

• Types of help (Fact sheet)
• All about health professionals (Fact sheet)
• All about psychological treatments (Fact sheet)
• Medication (Fact sheet)
• All about age and confidentiality (Fact sheet)
• Recognising something was wrong (Story)

This week ReachOut.com officially turned 15 years old! Did you know ReachOut.com was funded by a Triple J Real Appeal? That means that ReachOut.com was first started largely off the back of young people's own donations and fundraising efforts. Find out more about ReachOut.com's history and what we do.

We also recently uploaded new SMS tips campaigns to help young people build important factors for their mental health, in areas such as self-awareness, problem solving and learning from failure.

Forums Roundup

March Community Challenge is underway! In honour of Mardi Gras, this month is pride month and it's all about being proud of what makes you, you. See how young people are challenging themselves to stay proud of what makes them unique, and encourage them to join and share the challenge.

Last night's Getting Real session was on setting goals, but even more popular was last week's online discussion about addiction. Next week will be on coping strategies. Ask young people - are your coping strategies as healthy as they could be? Getting Real sessions are every Monday night.

There has been lots of activity in the Something's Not Right section - and in the Getting Help section, members are discussing psychiatrists. As the uni year is now underway, members are also talking about "conversation starters" for helping to make new friends....

This week ReachOut.com has updated it's SMS tips tool with 5 new campaigns, targeted at helping young people to work on skills for resilience and wellbeing, such as mindfulness, problem solving and coping skills.

What are ReachOut.com SMS Tips?

ReachOut.com SMS Tips is an online subscription service, which allows young people to sign up for free daily motivational messages and tips. Subscribers receive a daily message every afternoon, with each campaign lasting 14 days (2 weeks).

The new campaigns:

• Tips for self-awareness
• Problem solving tips
• Change and acceptance
• Learning from failure
• Identifying your values

All of the new campaigns were written by a psychologist, and reviewed by young people.

Access the SMS Tips service in ReachOut.com's Apps & Tools section

Using SMS Tips in your practice

SMS Tips can be a useful adjunct to work with a young person, particularly in areas you wish to encourage reflection.

They can be used to:

• Encourage reflection
• Boost motivation for change
• Boost therapy readiness
• Provide prompts to work on skills for wellbeing

Follow up - Check back in at your next session, and ask which of the tips was helpful and why.

Download our Guide to Using SMS Tips [PDF]

Note from consulting psychologist Anna Sidis:

SMS tips were co created with the assistance of young people who have experience of mental health issues and difficult life situations. We consider this input to be highly valuable as we believe that young people have a great deal of wisdom to offer those in similar circumstances. We would therefore encourage you to utilise the young persons reflections and knowledge as much as possible in therapeutic discussions with them. We hope that SMS tips might provide a useful platform for engaging in such discussions.

At this time of year, it's often especially important to remind young people that being in a relationship is not the sole objective of being alive, and encouraging them to appreciate ALL the things they love or rely on in their lives.

Community Challenge: A month of love

Feb is often labelled the 'month of LOVE', so this Feb, ReachOut.com is going to embrace the love! [Not just that romantic/cheesy love but stuff that we love too!] We'll will dropping mini challenges throughout Feb to help young people avoid the cheese and remind ourselves of who/what/why we love.

Check out the forum discussion

Resources on sex and relationships

ReachOut Pro provides links to key fact sheets, stories and support services for dealing with relationship, family and friend issues. If you have a young person who is struggling with relationships in February, browse some of the additional resources you can use to support them.

Browse our Relationship Resources

At the beginning of the year a lot of young people are in the mindset of thinking about what they want to do differently this year, and they often have a good idea of what they need to work on to get themselves on track to get there. The best thing we can do is help them build the skills and understanding to get started and stay motivated.

Give them tools to tackle their resolutions

1. Browse our skill building resources for young people
2. Encourage them to check out our online conversation on New Years Resolutions
3. Encourage them to try WorkOut - the online mental fitness program, with progress trackers and missions for building resilience and wellbeing

And something for you

We know young people are capable of tackling the challenges in their lives, capable of being strong, resilient people. But we also know we can't do everything for them - that they have to learn some things themselves.

In 2013 ReachOut.com will be releasing new guides, tips and tools for helping young people to take charge of their mental health and wellbeing in a positive and proactive way. We want to help you to help them, by connecting you with evidence based information, tools and apps that they can use.

Stay connected

1. Sign up to receive the monthly newsletter - with new resources, tools and research you can use or recommend to young people
2. Follow us on Facebook
3. Browse our list of currently available tools and apps - reviewed by professionals and young people

For many young people the holidays are a reminder of the things they don't have. For some, family can be a source of stress and conflict instead of warmth and love. Others are reminded of grief after losing a loved one. Whatever the reason, being reminded of family or forced to spend time with family can be a sad and lonely period for young people.

Mental health services tend to see a spike in support access around this period. On average, Lifeline speaks to over 1,400 people around Christmas and New Year, about a range of issues.

If you know young people who are struggling these holidays, show support by sharing resources and connecting them with community.

ReachOut.com resources for the holidays

Fact sheets and stories

• Managing grief at Christmas
• Bitter-sweet holiday (story)
• Family conflict with parents
• Fighting with a brother or sister

Forum discussions

You can choose your friends but not your relatives

Forum discussion on surviving family occasions, covering things such as:

• what you can do to make them more bearable,
• tips for more positive communication,and
• tips for managing conflict.

Welcome to the end of the year (Monday Dec 17, 8pm AEDST)

In ReachOut.com's LAST Getting Real session for the year, we'll be chatting about all things to do with this time of year.

We'll be kicking off with a discussion on the year that was and reflect on how we can think positively about the year - even if we experienced some setbacks throughout 2012. Then, looking ahead to 2013 and beyond! What are your plans for the new year? How can you achieve them? We'll also chat a bit about surviving the summer/party season. We'll also talk about how to deal with those family members that we mightn't want to spend time with!

Know any other great holiday resources for young people?