Our research

Suicide is the leading cause of death among young people. Despite funding into youth suicide prevention, the number of young people who take their own lives is not going down. Adolescents continue to self-harm at very high levels.

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• With the appointment of a dedicated Research Fellow in Youth Suicide Prevention, we will continue to develop a comprehensive research program to reduce self-harm and suicide in WA through schools, clinical services and the wider community. 
• We are partnering with young people and mental health service providers to determine what needs to happen to decrease youth suicide in WA.
• Our researchers in the Kimberley are looking at how equine therapy can be used to help improve the wellbeing of children to reduce their risk of suicide.
• We are using large population-based dataset and data linkage to explore questions around what predicts deliberate self-harm in young people.
• We are developing suicide prevention guidelines for LGBTIQA+ young people to ensure clinical services are well equipped to deal with their specific needs.
• We are working closely with young, Aboriginal mothers to help prevent suicide in this high-risk group.

Trauma, in general terms, can be defined as a psychological, emotional response to an event or an experience that is deeply distressing or disturbing. Loss, grief, and the experience multiple stressful life events all contribute to the experience of trauma. Many Aboriginal people have also experienced transgenerational trauma through colonisation. This includes, but is not limited to, the undermining of traditional identity, spirituality, language and cultural practices, forced removal of children from their families and the breakdown of healthy patterns of individual, family and community life. Many Aboriginal people also experience trauma through ongoing racism, violence and disadvantage.

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• Our researchers will work on this priority area by targeting prevention of trauma, the identification of those who have been exposed to trauma, and improving clinical treatment following trauma.
• We will evaluate culturally appropriate parenting interventions designed with and for Aboriginal people.
• We will attempt to better understand the different ways in which post traumatic stress disorder manifest in Aboriginal children who have experienced trauma.
• Researchers will work with schools and clinicians to help empower them to offer appropriate support to children and young people who have experienced trauma.
• We will develop ways to assist health workers in dealing with trauma in children and young people living in regional and remote areas.

Depression has been called “the chronic disease of the young”, while anxiety is the most common mental health problem for children. If kids get help early, they have the best chance of recovery. When it comes to treating depression and anxiety, what works for adults does not necessarily work for children and young people. Because of this, there are still gaps in our knowledge regarding the best treatments for depression and anxiety in this age group.

 At Embrace, our researchers are working on both psychological therapies and pharmacological interventions for depression and anxiety.

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• We have been exploring whether positive psychological therapies, such as self-compassion and acceptance commitment therapy, are useful for preventing anxiety and depression in adolescents who have a chronic illness.
• We know that young people love computer games. We are testing an online ‘serious game’ app that uses psychological principles in a fun way to prevent depression in vulnerable adolescents.
• On the pharmacological side, we are testing whether benign biological treatments, such as fish oil, can help reduce depressive symptoms in young people.
• We are also using novel biological treatments (for example, nitrous oxide) to overcome the delay in the onset of action of antidepressants.
• We are working to improve mental health screening of children and adolescents in WA to pick up anxiety and depression early.
• Our researchers are exploring how the school environment can be used to improve the mental health and wellbeing of our kids.
• We are looking at improving mental health literacy in our communities, from general practitioners to parents to schools as a way of identifying depression and anxiety early.
• Using data from the WA Raine birth cohort, we are exploring how epigenetic changes play a role in mental health outcomes of young people. In the ORIGINS cohort, we will be tracking the mental health of children from when they are toddlers to identify who is at risk of poor mental health and then enable to development of interventions.

Bullying occurs when an individual (or a group of people) repeatedly and intentionally cause harm to another person (or group of people), who is unable to avoid being targeted.

Bullying can include:

• Physical bullying (hitting, tripping, damaging property)
• Verbal bullying (insults, teasing, intimidation)
• Social bullying (lying, spreading rumours, excluding, damaging someone's social reputation)
• Cyberbullying (hurtful texts, posts, images or videos, imitating others online)

In Australia, more than one quarter of students aged 8 to 14 years report being bullied, and 9% report bullying others, every few weeks or more often.

All forms of bullying can have serious consequences for the person targeted, for the person who learns to bully others to achieve their goals, and for those who witness the bullying.

Bullying involvement is associated with feelings of being unsafe, poor relationships and social support, poor academic outcomes, and an increased risk of depression and other mental health issues.

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• One of the most empirically researched school-based programs in Australia is Friendly Schools, a universal bullying prevention and social skills development intervention. The Founding Director of the Friendly Schools initiative, Professor Donna Cross, along with researchers from the Health Promotion and Education Team who continue to work on the initiative, are based at Telethon Kids Institute.
• Friendly Schools is a systematic evidence-based approach to enhancing school policy and practice, building student social and emotional capabilities and the capacity of school leaders, teachers, parents and students to prevent, manage and respond to bullying.
• Over 20 years (1999-2019), Friendly Schools has been tested in seven randomised control trials and nine quasi-experimental studies involving more than 300 primary and secondary schools in Australia, comprising over 30,000 students, their teachers, parents and school leaders.
• This research has focused on understanding bullying, developing and evaluating whole-school evidence-based strategies to reduce all forms of bullying, and informing national and international policy and practice.
• This research has involved all members of the school community as co-researchers and through training and support.

Parents and families are an enormous part of children and young people’s lives. We know that mentally healthy families are better able to support children and young people. That’s why we are looking at ways to help parents and families cope with the challenges they face. Embrace researchers are working on a range of interventions to support the whole family. These include interventions in the online space and psychological therapies to reduce their stress and risk for mental illness. We are constantly updating resources to help parents support their children and help them grow into strong, healthy adults.  

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• Our researchers are working with schools to test interventions to support parents of high school students to reduce harm associated with alcohol use.
• Our cyber savvy program is about helping parents to ensure their children are kept safe online.
• We are using digital interventions to support parents of young people who are experiencing their first episode of psychosis.
• We are investigating how green space in our communities improves the mental health of children and families.
• Our researchers are working with families with kids who have been diagnosed with a chronic condition, such as diabetes, to help them to support their child’s mental health and their own wellbeing.

Some children and young people are at higher risk of poor mental health than kids from the general population. For example, Aboriginal young people are a higher risk for mental illness and suicide than their non-Aboriginal peers. The same is true of LGBTIQA+ youth, young people in justice and those in out of home care. Closing the gap for Aboriginal kids is a strategic priority at Telethon Kids. By working closely with Elders in communities across WA, we are bringing the voices of Aboriginal community members to the fore to work together to improve the mental health of Aboriginal children and young people.

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• We are using large population-based data sets and linked data to explore mental health and wellbeing in Aboriginal children and young people. We are also using ‘big data’ to better understand the outcomes of kids whose mums are exposed to domestic violence.
• We are tracking children who are leaving out of home care at age 18 to find out what supports they need for optimal mental health and wellbeing.
• By linking different sources of WA state data, we are exploring what makes children vulnerable for poor mental health. Once we know this, we can develop interventions to prevent mental illness in vulnerable groups.
• We know that young people love computer games. We are testing an online ‘serious game’ app that uses psychological principles in a fun way to prevent depression in gender diverse adolescents.

The mental health system is complex and children and young people are still “falling through the gaps”. Often it is the most vulnerable youth who have the greatest difficulty accessing timely and effective mental health care. By working closely with mental health services, we are trying to make it easier to navigate and access the mental health system.

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• Our Child Development Atlas will empower the community and assist government planning by showing the most up to date data of how each area of the state is tracking in terms of health, including mental health.
• We work with Aboriginal young people, Elders and services to improve the access and engagement of Aboriginal youth in mental health services.
• We also recognise that WA is a vast state. By adapting existing evidence-based interventions for use in online or mobile application formats, we can improve access to mental health care for young people in rural and remote locations.

Our research uses many methodologies and tools to ensure that we find best solution for the problem at hand. We have the skills and expertise in a wide range of platforms including:

Digital platforms: Kids live in a digital world. They are surrounded by technology and social media all the time. We are using technology to reach all children and young people by developing interventions that are delivered in the right way at the right time, regardless of where they live in this vast state.

Big data: Big data helps us to answer big questions. Western Australia has a strong history of using big data and data linkage and has long been a leader across Australia and around the world. Telethon Kids Institute is using big data and analytics to provide the empirical evidence to inform policy and planning changes in the health sector in WA. We work closely with Raine and ORIGINS, two WA birth cohorts that can help answer questions about the origin and course of mental illness.

Co-design and participatory research: Kids often know the answers! We are committed to involving children, young people and their families in designing solutions that work for them. Co-design means that the community are co-researchers working with us in the research to make it meaningful and relevant.

Clinical trials: Clinical trials are vitally important for us to understand what works best in preventing and treating mental health issues. Our researchers are engaged in a number of trials of psychological and pharmacological interventions for mental health in children and young people.

Laboratories: Mental illness is known to be underpinned by both psychological and biological processes. At Telethon Kids Institute we are in an excellent position to explore the biological risk factors of developing a mental illness because we have world class research scientists and laboratories on site.  Our researchers will explore a range of risk factors for developing mental health problems including genetic, epigenetic and immunological.