Our Research - Enhancing resilience in children and young people

About this research pillar

The mental health and wellbeing challenges faced by our children and youth are myriad across educational and community settings.

Our research covers multiple areas focused on enhancing resilience in young people including:

Sleep
Trauma
Gaming
Social media

Pressure to achieve
Bullying
Body image
Eating behaviours

Our work results in real world change in many areas including clinical settings, schools and sporting clubs, service provision as well as policy development.

Our research in practice - PEACE Pack

Bullying affects an estimated 100,000 children and young people in Australia every day, leading to harmful consequences of depression, anxiety, suicidal ideation, and self-harm. To help solve this crisis, Flinders University’s PEACE Pack plan is being introduced at schools around the world - and is getting strong results.

The PEACE Pack is an intervention program designed by Professor Phillip Slee and colleagues at the Flinders University Institute for Mental Health and Wellbeing (FIMHWell), designed to deal with bullying in schools by reducing severe victimisation, increasing self-efficacy in bullied students and changing the perception of classmates so they are more likely to intervene when a bullying episode occurs.

It's a process that has worked effectively through involving all stakeholders in the bullying process.

“Rather than just focusing on what bullying is, it goes beyond that to set up students with strategies on how to cope with bullying and teaches them concepts about resilience,” says Tamara Seaman, Student Wellbeing Leader at Springbank Secondary College, which first used the PEACE Pack in 2022, working with middle-school students over an 8-week period.

“It is proactive rather than reactive – and it’s a continuing program rather just a one-off chat with students, which provides long-term change to a school culture.”

The effectiveness of the PEACE Pack has seen Springbank Secondary College once again employ the program in 2023 – specifically for Year Seven students who are transitioning from primary school to the secondary college campus.

“It’s the consistency, tone and simplicity of the language used in the PEACE Pack that sets the students up to have a thorough understanding of the behaviours around bullying,” says Tamara, “and it’s the frequent repetition of this language through all components of the program that resonates with the students.”

The PEACE Pack program was first introduced at Brighton Secondary School in 2014 and reduced bullying from 15-20% of the school population to just 5%.

Building from this initial success, Professor Slee has since expanded several tailored versions of PEACE Pack to more than 350 schools across Australia, Greece, Italy, Malta and Japan.

The most recent PEACE Pack translation has been used by schools in Foggia, in southern Italy. Findings from this program, which have been published in the International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, show that after the intervention, severe victims of bullying (who are victimised at least once a week) showed a significant decrease in victimisation and higher scores in self-efficacy.

The study of more than 500 students in Foggia revealed that in addition to helping to reduce the troubles of those who are being severely bullied, the PEACE Pack also increased the willingness of more students who said they are prepared to intervene if they see incidents of bullying occur.

“Thanks to what we learned through the PEACE Pack process, the secondary students in Italy said they felt stronger and more capable of intervening”

Professor Slee says these expanded results highlight one of the great advantages of international collaborations, to provide new understanding and fresh insights to the original research.

“Thanks to what we learned through the PEACE Pack process, the secondary students in Italy said they felt stronger and more capable of intervening,” he says. “Beforehand, students would only say that taking action against a bully was a teacher’s job, not theirs.

“It introduces a whole new layer to the program, to know this is improving the efficacy of bystanders who are willing to intervene – and I’m delighted that the PEACE Pack has helped them to feel stronger and more capable of intervening when bullying occurs.

“This is very important in the social media era, because it also suggests that online bystanders may become a more powerful force in helping to counter-act cyber-bullying.”

Findings from the recent Italian study reinforce a belief that because the PEACE Pack can effectively intervene with bullying in schools, it should be part of daily classroom activities because it can be delivered entirely by teachers, representing a valid solution for schools with limited financial and time resources.

“It’s a solution that speaks to the core problem of bullying, because our findings in Italy replicate those from Australian, Maltese and Greek research,” says Professor Slee. “It opens new considerations on the effectiveness of the same PEACE Pack intervention in many different countries.”

Big Talks for Little People case study

Professor Phillip Slee and Associate Professor Shane Pill discuss how the Big Talks for Little People program is helping in the early prevention and detection of mental health and wellbeing issues in young people, and will soon be incorporated into sport and physical education settings. This initiative has been created in partnership with the Breakthrough Mental Health Research Foundation and the Little Heroes Foundation

Our researchers in this area:

Associate Professor Daniel King - problem gaming and digital media use; adolescent mental health
Professor Marika Tiggemann - body image
Professor Phillip Slee - mental health, wellbeing, & violence prevention in young people
Associate Professor Ryan Balzan - prevention and treatment of serious mental illnesses (e.g., psychosis), digital mental health interventions
Professor Shane Pill - development of health literacy through curriculum developments, achieving wellbeing through sport club education initiatives
Dr Grace Skrzypiec - child and adolescent bullying, mental health, and well-being
Associate Professor Helen McLaren - system advocacy and social change, with a focus on improving outcomes for children and young people, stronger families, and inclusive communities
Professor Reg Nixon - prevention and treatment of posttraumatic stress disorder, dissemination and implementation of evidenced-based therapies
Dr Kate Ridley - children’s energy expenditure, physical activity, sedentary behaviour and associated health outcomes
Professor Lydia Woodyatt - understanding human responses to transgressions and failure bridging the psychology of justice and moral repair, wellbeing, psychological needs, emotions, and relationships
Associate Professor Kerry Bissaker - effective learning processes for both students and teachers
Dr Mirella Wyra - foreign language learning and teaching
Professor Robyn Young - screening tool for Autistic Disorder suitable for use in children as young as 12 months of age
Dr Catherine Johnson – wellbeing education programs in industry partnerships with school
Professor Tracey Wade - prevention and treatment of eating disorders, perfectionism interventions
Dr Julie McMillan - developmental disabilities, inclusive education, autism and special education
Dr Ben Lohmeyer - youth loneliness, bullying, social policy/welfare and youth violence