Editor’s Choice Articles

Consent education was recently introduced into the Australian curriculum, and has contributed to much of the public discourse for the past few years. However, teens’ accounts of their Relationships and Sexuality Education (RSE) classes indicate that consent is being taught to varying degrees of consistency. Qualitative data collected from 49 semi-structured interviews with 30 Australian teens (aged 11–17), with 19 interviews reprised one year later, involved teens discussing their experiences of RSE, including consent. These data were extended by 4 x teen focus groups with 18 participants. Using thematic analysis, teens’ perspectives and experiences revealed how consent appears to dominate RSE. Teens expressed dissatisfaction with how RSE was delivered and how sex is often framed in a context of safety and risk, where current framings of consent appear to contribute to fear-based messaging. Often, consent was taught as how to seek or give permission for sex or to avoid sexual assault in ways that may not reflect teens’ actual experiences. While the implementation of consent signifies welcome progress in relation to RSE, teens reveal there is still room for improvement. More positive representations of sex and sexuality are needed to balance an emphasis on safety and risk. Support is also required to help educators navigate curriculum changes, while further attention is needed to support teens’ skill development in more holistic and comprehensive aspects of sexuality and relationships. Full article

Young organizers are increasingly calling for social movements to center healing alongside activism as they build political power. Campaigns that solely focus on policy wins or base-building can lead to burnout and frustration. Sociopolitical action is more likely to be sustained if accompanied by experiences of care, belonging, and mutual support. Such an approach makes sociopolitical wellbeing central to organizing. Although the research literature has offered conceptualizations of healing, and compelling evidence of health-related outcomes, we still lack empirical examples of what it looks like for youth community organizing (YCO) groups to weave a commitment to healing into sustained collective action. Drawing on qualitative data from the Powerful Youth, Powerful Communities International Study on Youth Organizing, we define and demonstrate three interconnected healing-oriented values that foster what we characterize as sociopolitical wellbeing. The three values, which we illustrate via fieldnotes and interview excerpts, are collectivized care, spiritual activism, and freedom dreaming. YCO holds promising implications for supporting youth engagement in democratic movements for education, racial, gender, economic, and environmental justice. Full article

Self-regulation has been shown to play a protective role against youth substance abuse, but less is known about its influence on bullying behavior. In the present study, we examined several forms of bullying (physical, social, cyber, and all forms combined) and roles (bullies, victims, and bully-victims). Students (N = 1977, ages 11 to 13) from 27 middle schools throughout the United States (US) completed an online self-reported assessment of bullying and its hypothesized etiologic determinants. Across the outcomes, analyses revealed that social bullying was most prevalent, followed by physical bullying and cyberbullying. For bullying roles, almost two-thirds of students reported bullying victimization, nearly one-quarter reported bullying perpetration, and one in five students reported both. Of those reporting perpetration, 9 of 10 reported being victimized. Multivariate logistic regression models were used to examine the associations between self-regulation, bystander intervention skills, and bullying. For all forms of bullying combined, self-regulation was protective against bullying perpetration (OR 0.51, 95% CI: 0.42, 0.63) and perpetration/victimization (OR 0.55, 95% CI: 0.44, 0.68), while bystander intervention skills were not protective. Similar patterns emerged for physical, social, and cyberbullying. Collectively, these findings indicate that building self-regulation skills may be a critical component of interventions aimed at preventing bullying among school-aged youth. Full article

This article explores the increasing prevalence of for-profit residential care, with a particular focus on Great Britain, while also drawing on the international evidence from the Global North. Comprising a critical review of the published evidence (both academic and grey literature), the article seeks to examine what might explain the rising prevalence of and the possible associated impacts of the increase in for-profit provision. The findings indicate that the rise of for profit-companies among residential child care providers appears to have occurred by default, rather than explicit policy design. Our analysis also highlights gaps in the knowledge base about the quality of care and whether better quality is associated with the type of provider. Furthermore, the relationships between provider, quality, cost and outcomes are unclear. There are inconsistencies in the evidence base, with different conclusions being reached. However, available evidence tends to suggest the increased prevalence of for-profit residential child care providers has had an overall negative, rather than positive, effect. The best case in favour of the continued use of for-profit residential care is currently a non-moral pragmatic one: that in countries with medium and high prevalence of the use of residential child care, it would be hard to sustain care systems if for-profit providers were to suddenly withdraw or be withdrawn. Full article

The inclusion of children and young people as co-researchers within mental health research has become increasingly recognised as valuable to improve equity and research quality. These approaches are considered important to shift knowledge and power hierarchies in research that has traditionally marginalised the voices of young people and prioritised positivist ways of knowing. Yet, very little research has explored the value of including youth advisors in research exploring the arts and mental health. This article, co-written intergenerationally, explores the role of a youth advisory (YA) in the design, data collection, and knowledge exchange of the DanceConnect research project: a study exploring if and how online dance classes may improve the social and mental wellbeing of young people (aged 16–24) living with anxiety in the UK. Drawing upon qualitative data (audio recordings of advisory meetings from the study (n = 5 meetings), a youth advisory focus group with an arts-based component (n = 1), and researcher ethnographic fieldnotes from four researchers), this study reflects on the role of a youth advisory in young researchers’ own lives. Through a reflexive analytic approach, we found that the youth advisory constructed meaningful emotional experiences, fostered spaces of learning and growth, and enabled a sense of community. Reflecting on our findings, we also set out key recommendations for researchers working in the field of arts and mental health who may wish to establish youth advisories in the future. This article acts as an important resource that can be used to inform and reflect on improving coproduction processes with youth advisors in arts and mental health research. Full article

This study examined how Social Cognitive Theory (SCT) constructs help explain the intention to quit e-cigarettes in young Australian adults aged 18–24 years to inform vaping cessation programs. A cross-sectional survey of young adult vapers (n = 422) between March and the end of May 2023 examined personal, environmental, and behavioural factors of vaping cessation. Hierarchical multiple regression analysis examined the effects of SCT constructs on intention to quit vaping, controlling for covariates. Results found, in our sample consisting of 68% (n = 360) females, 18% (n = 95) males and 14% (n = 77) others, almost two-thirds (59.7%) of participants reported a quit attempt in the last year; with quit attempts being associated with quit intention (p ≤ 0.001). Model 1 (past year quit attempt, gender, educational attainment) accounted for 28.7% of the variance in quit intentions, with the addition of Model 2 SCT constructs adding a further significant 6.3% variance. Self-efficacy (B = 0.164, p ≤ 0.001), benefits (B = −0.106, p = 0.041) and social norms (B = −0.086, p = 0.035) had significant independent associations with quit intention. Findings demonstrate the SCT theoretical framework is suitable for use when developing vaping cessation programs, identifying the SCT constructs as important factors for quit intention. The findings can be used to inform the development of evidence-based vaping cessation programs to encourage vapers to quit and/or better support them in the quitting process. Full article

Media representations and dominant social constructions of the ‘ideal’ physique for young women are often framed through a Westernised lens that focuses on heteronormative, White able-bodied aesthetics of beauty and femininity. Until very recently, the imagery available for young women to connect with and aspire to has been highly limited, failing to represent the embodied cultural beliefs that Indigenous and culturally-minoritised young women may have towards the gendered body. In this paper, we draw upon focus groups (wānanga) and digital diaries with young, physically active Māori and Pasifika wāhine (women) in Aotearoa New Zealand, to reveal how they are making meaning out of dominant framings of beauty, and drawing upon cultural knowledge to refuse such portrayals, instead reclaiming power in their own bodies. Working at the intersection of Mana Wahine and Masi methodologies, this article amplifies the voices of young Māori and Pasifika wāhine who actively participate in sport and/or physical activity, embrace and appreciate their strong brown bodies, and are critically reading and rejecting dominant Western framings of beauty and femininity. In so doing, this paper contributes to a growing international dialogue about the need for new culturally-informed understandings of body image by young women from Indigenous and culturally marginalised communities. Full article

The recent acceleration in divorce rates and diversification of nuclear families has resulted in an increase in single-parent households. Divorce is one of the most adverse events in a child’s life. Various literature highlights the detrimental effects of parental divorce on children and adolescents, but few studies have emphasized possible support strategies or interventions available to assist in the mental health of adolescents after divorce. The objective of this study was to gain an overview of the strategies and interventions available to adolescents exposed to parental divorce. The current study employed a scoping review method to evaluate the coverage of literature on strategies available to support adolescent mental health after parental divorce. The following databases were searched: Academic Search Premier, Africa-Wide Information, African Journal Online, CINAHL, and JSTOR. A total of eight studies were included in this review. The results show that most mental health interventions target the known mediator of risk, such as parenting problems or family conflict. Although the parents, caregivers, or teachers of these adolescents reported improvement after the intervention, the adolescents reported no effect. Full article

Young adults are less likely to seek professional help even though they are most likely to experience mental health problems. The aim of the present study was to investigate young adults’ attitudes towards mental illness and self-stigma of help-seeking, identify possible determinants of attitudes and self-stigma, and examine the association between attitudes towards mental illness and self-stigma of help-seeking. The sample consisted of 485 Greek young adults (24.5% men, 75.5% women) aged 18–25 years (M = 19.54, SD = 1.83) who completed the Attitudes towards Severe Mental Illness (ASMI) and the Self-Stigma of Seeking Help Scale (SSOSH). The results indicated that Greek young adults hold mostly positive attitudes towards severe mental illness and help-seeking, while their unfavorable attitudes are mainly related to difficulties with viewing people with a severe mental disorder as similar to other people, and fear that by seeking professional help a person’s worth will be diminished. Gender, age, familiarity with mental health difficulties, education, and relationship status were found to be associated with young adults’ attitudes towards severe mental illness and self-stigma of help-seeking. Finally, stereotyping, pessimistic beliefs, and negative beliefs about coping with mental illness were identified as key determinants of self-stigma of help-seeking. These findings suggest a need for age- and gender-sensitive psychoeducational interventions specifically designed to promote young adults’ mental health literacy and to ameliorate unfavorable attitudes towards mental illness in order to increase help-seeking behavior. Full article

Engagement in youth activism has been linked to both positive and negative wellbeing. Drawing on survey results from a sample of 636 youth participants in the ACLU Advocacy Institute, this study finds that although youth generally report greater benefits from their activism than costs, the costs are significantly related to worse mental health, physical health, and flourishing, while benefits are positively associated with flourishing only. A sense of belonging to an activist community, however, emerges as a significant protective factor for mental health, physical health, and flourishing. Focus group respondents explain how peer support and a sense of belonging act as salves to burnout, the most common cost that youth activists in this sample report experiencing. They also identify three main sources of burnout: backlash in response to their efforts; pressure to be the savior generation; and the slow progress of change. This study advances understanding of the complex relationship between youth activism and wellbeing and raises implications for youth activists and those who support them. Full article