In this weeks episode of Let's Reconnect Breanna is joined by Dr Louise La Sala a Research Fellow at Orygen, the Centre for Youth Mental Health at the University of Melbourne. Louise’s work focuses on youth self-harm and suicide prevention, with a particular emphasis on how young people engage online on social media.
Louise and Breanna discuss how parents and professionals working with kids can support children and young people who may be mentally unwell themselves or who may be supporting a friend with suicidal thoughts or engaging in self harm. They discuss the Chatsafe guidelines which have been developed by Louise and her team at Orygen, which you can download yourself here. They also discuss Lousie's PHD research into how young peoples social media use impacts mental health and how young people are using AI for mental health support.
Orygen has resources for parents and carers who want to support their children and young people to have safe online conversations and they are available in 31 different languages which you can find here. You can also read up about their research into their resources here.
Breanna discusses how Punch the Monkey reminds her of a classic Psychological experiment from the 1950's and how Punch the monkey can remind us as parents what children really need from us.