Kevin Runions

Empowering school communities to Support Student Mental health and Wellbeing: Development and Testing of the Online Assessment, Support and Implementation System (OASIS)

Social Ventures Australia Evidence Summaries

The effectiveness of a day hospital mentalization-based therapy programme for adolescents with borderline personality traits: Findings from Touchstone—Child and Adolescent Mental Health Service

Individuals with borderline personality disorder (BPD) are at a substantial risk of harm to themselves and others, experience high levels of functional impairment and typically are high users of tertiary healthcare to address their mental health concerns. As indicators for BPD typically emerge in adolescence, a day therapy service in Bentley, Western Australia, Touchstone Child and Adolescent Mental Health Service (CAMHS), was developed as an intensive intervention for adolescents with indicators for BPD and its associated symptomology.

How does the school built environment impact students’ bullying behaviour? A scoping review

School bullying is a public health concern affecting the physical and mental health of children and young people. While school-based interventions to prevent bullying have been developed internationally, the effectiveness of many interventions has been mixed and modest.

Supporting the Social-Emotional Well-Being of Elementary School Students Who Are Deaf and Hard of Hearing: A Pilot Study

Children who are Deaf and Hard of Hearing, their parents, Teachers of the Deaf, and other community stakeholders were involved in co-designing a web-based resource to support students' social-emotional well-being.

‘It’s All About Context’: Building School Capacity to Implement a Whole-School Approach to Bullying

Student bullying behaviours are a significant social issue in schools worldwide. Whilst school staff have access to quality bullying prevention interventions, schools can face significant challenges implementing the whole-school approach required to address the complexity of these behaviours.

Overarching Evaluation of the National Support for Child and Youth Mental Health Program- Final Report

The National Support for Child and Youth Mental Health Program (the Program) aims to improve mental health outcomes for children and young people, commencing with the early years and going through to adolescence, by providing targeted grants for workforce and education activities that will build capabilities aligned to the Program objectives.

Strengthening student social and emotional wellbeing and preventing bullying behaviours: Insights from 20 years of Friendly Schools research in Australian schools.

Strong evidence supports our current understandings of student bullying behaviours and ways schools can prevent and respond effectively to bullying behaviour. In the late 1990’s, however, little was understood about the most effective ways to reduce bullying in Australian schools. In response to schools’ need for evidence-informed action, a pipeline of research called Friendly Schools was initiated in 1999 which for the past twenty years, has provided robust whole-school evidence-based knowledge and skills to support policy makers, school staff and other practitioners working in schools and families across Australia.

Leading excellence through equity: Social emotional learning for a Fair Go

Australia likes to call itself the land of the "Fair Go". But what does a Fair Go mean for students from backgrounds of deep disadvantage? The UN Sustainable Development Goals for 2030 aim to ensure "inclusive and equitable quality education and [to promote] lifelong learning opportunities for all" (United Nations, 2015).

Friendly schools’ bullying prevention research: Implications for school counsellors

Bullying varies in frequency, intensity, duration and hence severity, and contributes uniquely and directly to mental health problems, with severe and long-lasting consequences. Almost a half of school-age students report being bullied in the past year.

School-based bullying intervention programs in Australia and New Zealand

Western Australian adolescent emotional wellbeing during the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020

The impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic have been vast and are not limited to physical health. Many adolescents have experienced disruptions to daily life, including changes in their school routine and family’s financial or emotional security, potentially impacting their emotional wellbeing.

Why did you do that? Differential types of aggression in offline and in cyberbullying

Traditional conceptualizations of aggression distinguish between reactive (e.g., rage) and proactive (e.g., reward) functions of aggression. However, critiques of this dichotomy have pointed out these models conflate motivational valence and self-control.

Parents' experiences of children with a rare disease attending a mainstream school: Australia

To explore the perceptions of parents who had a child or adolescent (6-18 years) diagnosed with a rare disease who attended a mainstream school in Western Australia. Design and methods: A cross-sectional online survey was conducted with 41 parents of children with a rare disease.

Bullying and psychosocial adjustment among children with and without asthma

Children with asthma face serious mental health risk, but the pathways remain unclear. This study aimed to examine bullying victimisation and perpetration in children with asthma and a comparison sample without a chronic health condition, and the role of bullying in moderating psychosocial adjustment outcomes for those with asthma. A sample of children with and without asthma, and their parents, were recruited from hospital clinics.

Why do Victims become Perpetrators of Peer Bullying? Moral Disengagement in the Cycle of Violence

Previous studies have shown that there is overlap between victimization and the perpetration of bullying, and social and motivational variables are known to mediate this relationship. However, the effects of different moral disengagement strategies have not been studied, despite the fact that they exert a major influence on aggressive behavior.

Borderline Personality Disorder and Peers: A Scoping Review of Friendship, Victimization and Aggression Studies

Borderline personality disorder (BPD) is characterized by instability in interpersonal relationships. To date no reviews have scoped the extant research on peer relationship functioning for young people diagnosed with BPD or showing borderline personality features. The current review provides this scoping of studies on all facets of peer relationships, including friendship quality, peer victimization and bullying and peer aggression, and relevant studies of social–cognitive processes with relevance to peer relationships. From 282 studies identified up to August 2019, 39 studies were included for review.

Acute Tryptophan Depletion Moja-De: A Method to Study Central Nervous Serotonin Function in Children and Adolescents

Serotonin (5-HT) is widely implicated as a key neurotransmitter relevant to a range of psychiatric disorders and psychological processes. The role of central nervous 5-HT function underlying these processes can be examined through serotonergic challenge methodologies.

Chronic health conditions, mental health and the school: A narrative review

School-based social risk processes in the lives of young people with chronic health conditions are likely to contribute to risk of psychological problems

Facilitators and barriers to the implementation of motivational interviewing for bullying perpetration in school settings

Results indicated a number factors which influenced the uptake of Motivational Interviewing in schools

Moral Disengagement of Pure Bullies and Bully/Victims: Shared and Distinct Mechanisms

This study advances bullying research by extending the role of moral disengagement in bullying episodes beyond pure bullies to victims, both pure victims and bully/victims

Telling an Adult at School about Bullying: Subsequent Victimization and Internalizing Problems

To prevent persistent victimization, schools and teachers need to be better equipped to respond effectively when a student first becomes a target of bullying

No detectable effects of acute tryptophan depletion on short-term immune system cytokine levels in healthy adults

The acute tryptophan depletion condition did not result in significant changes to cytokine concentrations for the entire study sample

Concurrent developmental course of sleep problems and emotional/behavioral problems in childhood and adolescence as reflected by the dysregulation profile

Findings provide evidence for a strong association in the development of sleep problems and difficulties of dysregulation with emotion, cognition, and aggression

Functional connectivity of the vigilant-attention network in children and adolescents with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder

ADHD patients showed substantially diminished intrinsic coupling for 7 connections and increased coupling for 4 connections

Serotonin and aggressive behaviour in children and adolescents: a systematic review

Findings were mixed, with support both for negative and for positive associations of central nervous 5-HT function with aggression in children and adolescents

Friendly Schools Universal Bullying Prevention Intervention: Effectiveness with Secondary School Students

This study demonstrates the importance of considering the effectiveness of secondary school bullying prevention interventions and real-world implementation support

Impact of the Friendly Schools whole-school intervention on transition to secondary school and adolescent bullying behaviour

These findings demonstrate the immediate value of whole-school interventions to reduce bullying behaviour and associated harms among students

Beyond the reactive-proactive dichotomy: Rage, revenge, reward, and recreational aggression predict early high school bully and bully/victim status

We discuss the implications of addressing Revenge and Recreation, as well as Reward and Rage aggression motives, for bullying prevention and intervention strategies

Using acute tryptophan depletion to investigate predictors of treatment response in adolescents with major depressive disorder

The major hypothesis of this study is that acute tryptophan depletion will be negatively associated with mood and cognitive functioning

The school experiences of children and adolescents with type 1 diabetes in Western Australia

Elevated levels of emotional difficulties among school students with T1D and variable levels of support from school staff to assist these students to manage their diabetes at school

Does the Risk Outweigh the Benefits? Adolescent Responses to Completing Health Surveys

Self-reported experiences of adolescents in population-based samples when completing health-related surveys on topics with varying potential for evoking distres

Effects of Dietary Acute Tryptophan Depletion (ATD) on NPY Serum Levels in Healthy Adult Humans Whilst Controlling for Methionine Supply-A Pilot Study

Acute tryptophan depletion, and therefore, diminished substrate availability for brain 5-HT synthesis did not lead to significant changes in serum neuropeptide Y concentrations over time

Motivational interviewing as a positive response to high-school bullying

We provide a narrative review of Motivational Interviewing and map its core features onto the extant literature on self‐reported motivations for bullying

Dietary patterns, body mass index and inflammation: Pathways to depression and mental health problems in adolescents

We aimed to elucidate the longitudinal relationship between dietary patterns, adiposity, inflammation and mental health in a population of adolescents.

Bullying and mental health amongst Australian children and young people with cystic fibrosis

This study describes the peer bullying experiences of young people with CF, and examines associations between school bullying and the psychological well-being of these young people

Differences in serum zinc levels in acutely ill and remitted adolescents and young adults with bulimia nervosa in comparison with healthy controls – a cross-sectional pilot study

Research has implicated that changes in Zn metabolism may be associated with the biological underpinnings of eating disorders, in particular anorexia nervosa.

Properties of the DASS-21 in an Australian Community Adolescent Population

This study evaluated for a multifactor structure in the DASS-21 teenagers and the specifics of the 3 subscales for teenagers in general at different stages.

Mental health problems among 4–17-year-olds with hearing problems: results from a nationally representative study

Clinicians caring for children and young people with hearing problems should be alert for heightened risk of specific mental health problems based on age and the nature of hearing problems.

Reactive aggression in young patients with ADHD—a critical role for small provocations

ADHD is one of the most commonly diagnosed disorders in child and adolescent psychiatry and is characterized by attentional deficits, hyperactivity, and impulsivity

Bipolar disorder in children and adolescents: diagnostic inpatient rates from 2000 to 2013 in Germany

The rate of Bipolar Disorder as a discharge diagnosis in German minors has increased significantly, consistently exceeding the general trend for a rise in rates for mental disorders

Developmental trajectories of sleep problems from childhood to adolescence both predict and are predicted by emotional and behavioral problems

Findings from this study provide empirical evidence for the heterogeneity of sleep problems and their development

Cyber Agression

Information and communication technology has allowed individuals to engage in aggressive behavior on multiple distinct platforms with different capabilities

Disruptive mood dysregulation disorder

The new diagnostic category of disruptive mood dysregulation disorder (DMDD) was introduced in DSM-5

Disruptive mood dysregulation disorder in ICD-11: a new disorder or ODD with a specifier for chronic irritability

This letter congratulates Mulraney et al. regarding their paper on disruptive mood dysregulation disorder in children with ADHD.

Online Moral Disengagement, Cyberbullying, and Cyber-Aggression. Cyberpsychology, Behavior, and Social Networking

The study of moral disengagement has greatly informed research on aggression and bullying.

Reactive aggression and peer victimization from pre-kindergarten to first grade: accounting for hyperactivity and teacher-child conflict

Teacher-child conflict in kindergarten predicted subsequent increases in victimization, reactive aggression, and hyperactivity

Bullying Prevalence Across Contexts: A Meta-analysis Measuring Cyber and Traditional Bullying

Bullying involvement in any form can have lasting physical and emotional consequences for adolescents.

Does Gender Moderate the Association Between Children's Behaviour and Teacher-Child Relationship in the Early Years?

The purpose of this study was to examine whether teachers’ reports of relationship quality were associated with children's behaviour and gender.

Teacher–Child Relationship, Parenting, and Growth in Likelihood and Severity of Physical Aggression in the Early School Years

This study investigated the likelihood of children showing problems with parent-rated physical aggression, and on the severity of problems, for 374 children.