Practical strategies to help our children and adolescents cope
The format will include Q&A and questions can be asked anonymously upon registration and during the session
“The upcoming mental health webinar being curated by Wolper Jewish Hospital and the NSW Jewish Board of Deputies [JBD], ‘Practical mental health strategies to help our children and adolescents cope’ is particularly timely given the current increased level of anxiety in the Jewish community,” says Wolper Jewish Hospital president Richard Glass.
Professor Harriet Hiscock of the Murdoch Children’s Research Institute noted that “there was definitely a trend pre-COVID of increasing mental health problems in children”. Dr Michael Carr-Gregg, a leading adolescent mental health expert, has stated that COVID and the resulting lockdowns “turbo-charged” the “compare and despair” phenomenon kids were navigating through social media as well as their overall exposure to social media.
Prior to the war in Israel and Gaza there was already a generational deterioration in the social and emotional wellbeing of kids across Australia, as evidenced by The Australian Council for Educational Research’s most recent Social-Emotional Wellbeing Survey. It identified – for example – a marked deterioration in the wellbeing of primary school-age with them finding it harder to calm down quickly, with more kids experiencing hurtful feelings and an increased incidence of prolonged periods of anger.
Overlay this with the horrific images to which our kids are now being exposed – in print, social media and on TV as a result of the war in Israel and Gaza – there is no wonder that parents are concerned for their children’s mental health.
“For that reason, Wolper Jewish Hospital and the NSW Jewish Board of Deputies are providing the second in their special two-part Wellbeing webinar series, specifically developed to assist parents, grandparents and carers to better support their children and adolescents during this challenging and unsettling time,” noted JBD president David Ossip.
This free community webinar is on Monday, December 4th at 7.30pm on Zoom.
The panel includes Dr Danielle Einstein (clinical psychologist; Adjunct Fellow at Macquarie University; leading expert in understanding the impact of uncertainty on mental health; specialist in social media use); Dr Antony Milch (leading child, adolescent and family psychiatrist focusing on management of trauma for children and their families); Sandy Hollis (Head of Education at the Sydney Jewish Museum); and Alissa Foster, 2023 President of the Australasian Union of Jewish Students, who will discuss the support available to Year 12 students entering university life for the first time.
The format will include Q&A and questions can be asked anonymously upon registration and during the session.
Register to attend at wolper.com.au/wellbeing.
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