On Tuesday 27 May 2025, the Victorian Women’s Trust proudly presented the fifth instalment of our Trust Women: Lunch Break Sessions, a six-part policy webinar series designed to break down some of the most important gender equality policy challenges facing Australia today.

Teen girls face a mental health crisis, with anxiety at record highs. Social media, weakened community ties, and rising misogyny fuel the problem, yet support remains hard to access. In Youth Mental Health: How Can We Better Support Teens?, our expert panel discussed the ways we can foster resilience in teens, and the policy changes that are needed to better protect them.

Speakers: 

• Dr Louise La Sala, Research Fellow, Orygen
• Dr Christine Grove, Educational Psychologist, Monash University and RMIT
• Moderated by Elfy Scott, Author and Journalist

From February to June 2025, we hosted expert-led discussions on key issues such as nuclear energy, early childhood education, abortion access, housing, youth mental health, and tech-facilitated abuse. Each session offered insights from leading thinkers, advocates, and policy experts, helping us better understand the blockers to progress and, more importantly, the pathways forward. View the other webinars in this series..

Further Resources

• Beyond Bans: Orygen review of social media recommendations (report)
• The One Thing We’ve Never Spoken About (book by Elfy Scott)
• Social media ban could hurt vulnerable kids (article in the West Australian)
• #chatsafe: A young person’s guide to communicating safely online about self-harm and suicide
• Orygen Digital (research area)
• Families in the Digital Age: Every parent’s guide (book by Toni Hassan)
• Orygen Mythbusters (training resource)
• Orygen Climate concerns and young people’s mental health (report)
• Project Rockit (anti-bullying program)
• Satellite Foundation (not-for-profit supporting young people who have a family member living with mental health challenges)
• International Association for Suicide Prevention: Suicide in Women and Girls (taskforce overview)

Transcript

Note: Transcript is provided for reference only, and has been edited for clarity. Please confirm accuracy before quoting.

Elfy Scott:
Hello, everybody. Before we get started, I would like to acknowledge the Traditional Owners of the lands that everybody is joining us from today. I would like to pay my respects to elders, past and present, and extend that respect to any Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander people joining us.

Hi everybody, and thank you so much for logging on and joining us for this session on youth mental health and how we can better support teens. My name is Elfy Scott. I’m an author and a journalist working on Gadigal Land and I’m so thrilled to be moderating this session today.

This session is part of an ongoing Gender Equality Policy webinar series, put together by the Victorian Women’s Trust to explore a range of topics. All the sessions are free, and the staff will pop a registration link in the chat for you to have a look at the recordings of other sessions, and also sign up for upcoming events.Today we will also have a short Q&A towards the end of the session, so please feel free to drop in any questions for our experts into the Q&A function. And for those taking part in the chat discussion,  please keep the conversation respectful and civil. It will be moderated to ensure it’s a safe and inclusive space for everyone.

Okay, so we’re here today because teen girls are facing a mental health crisis. Anxiety is at record highs and social media, weakened community ties and rising misogyny are fuelling this problem. And support remains hard to access. So what policy changes are needed, and how can we foster resilience and ensure that no teen is left behind? To explore this topic today, I will now introduce our two incredible panelists I am so excited to be speaking with.

So firstly we have Doctor Louise Le Sala. She is a Research Fellow at Orygen and works at the Center for Youth Mental Health at the University of Melbourne. Her research focuses on youth self-harm and suicide prevention, with a specific interest in the impact of social media on the mental health and wellbeing of young people.

We also have the wonderful Doctor Christine Grove. A Fulbright Scholar and educational and developmental psychologist from Monash University. She’s known for her commitment to enhancing the mental wellbeing of individuals. And throughout her career, she’s worked collaboratively with healthcare teams, educators, families and youth to create innovative solutions that address the holistic needs of individuals. So let’s kick it off. Christine, I’m going to throw a question to you firstly. So as someone who has extensively researched the impacts of Covid 19 on young people, can we talk a little bit about the mental health status of young people in general at the moment, and is Covid 19 still a factor in all of this?

Dr Christine Grove:
Thanks Elfy, and thank you for the warm introduction of both Louise and myself. In short, yes, the pandemic is still having impacts on young people and young Australians across the nation. And we are seeing that even though the acute phase of Covid 19 is over and we are having enduring impacts from it on their wellbeing and their mental health.

Recent study from the University of Adelaide actually showed that young people are still struggling post those pandemic years, and that suggests that the mental health impacts from Covid 19 are ongoing and haven’t just finished and stopped because Covid 19 is finished and over. We realise, some of the research that we’ve done has seen and identified that young people are still increasing in their mental challenges and in their struggles with their wellbeing. While other age groups are actually declining, they’re improving over time. So that does tell us that we are needing to address this challenge that we’re seeing in young people and particularly, in young females and young women as well. So I would say that the impact is ongoing. It’s having long term effects. And we are seeing that they are profound. And they are increasing, as well over time. And this is impacting things like loneliness. We did see a huge social disruption, for young people in, you know, leading to social challenges around rebuilding connections. And then we also have a few challenges around accessing support and services for that age group as well. So there are quite a few hurdles that we are seeing for this particular age group. And in short, yes, it is long lasting for this age group. And it hasn’t just finished because the acute impact of Covid 19 is over.

Elfy Scott:
It sounds like an obvious question and it is an obvious question, but I think maybe it’s worth drawing out the details of how exactly the pandemic impacted young people. Like what were the forces during the pandemic that really led to these ongoing issues?

Dr Christine Grove:
For quite a few young people, they weren’t able to access the everyday life, so they weren’t able to get to the shops or spend time with friends. And for some youth that was during key developmental stages of their adolescence.

So that would be where we’re making friends. We’re finding partners. We really are then starting to develop our own identity during those years. And so during that time, those young people were stuck at home. Only really connected through social media and the digital world, which is brilliant and fantastic and has its own strengths. But as we’re seeing now, Australia is wanting to come in and do quite a heavy ban on that. So it’s really interesting to see kind of that dichotomy there. And I think emphasising the point that it is a critical age in terms of their milestones and their development, where the pandemic hit. And so taking that into consideration, when we are developing, you know, policy reform, when we are looking at interventions and supports for this age group that we really do see that they have unique challenges that they are facing. And that they are relating to social media and bullying online, and that even though the pandemic has passed, we are still seeing social isolation. We’re still seeing an increase in loneliness for this age group. And we do need to have more comprehensive strategies that address some of those challenges, as the wellbeing of this Covid era of young people are still impacted and will be impacted ongoing.

Elfy Scott:
Yeah, absolutely. So Lou, speaking of social media. Your work has taken a special research interest in social media and how it affects teenagers. So can you walk us through a little bit? This is not an easy question, by the way. I’m sure that you’ll take a little bit of time to answer this. But can you tell us a little bit about what you’ve learned? And are all teenagers impacted similarly, or is there a gendered element at play?

Dr Louise La Sala:
Yeah. Cool. So yeah, thanks for having me. That is a huge question. And, you know, there’s no denying that at the moment this is a very emotionally charged issue here in Australia, particularly. As Chris mentioned, we are kind of, really quickly nearing the age minimum, age requirement, for the minimum age on social media. What impact is social media having on young people? I would say that a lot of the data that we have on this is correlation, correlational studies, which means what we know, like Christine said, we are seeing rises in youth distress, mental health challenges among young people. And we are seeing that associated with time spent online. I guess straight off the bat, I would say that our measurement of the impact that social media is having on young people has been poor, because we are relying on time spent online. And what that shows us, like I said, is that we’re seeing that young people who are struggling, might that be with depression, anxiety, not fitting in at school, particularly in our line of work with self-harm or thoughts of suicide. We’re seeing that translate to more time spent online. What we don’t have a full understanding of is are those factors what are leading to someone spending that time online? As opposed to social media is causing that. So there is a bi direction, I guess, in the relationships here, which is still very much poorly understood.

Are we seeing these impacts for all young people? No. I think it’s really important that we do kind of note that for the most part, particularly for young young people here in Australia. And when I say young people, I’m talking about ages 12 to 25, because that’s the age group that we work with. For the most part, young people report that their online interactions and their online experiences are largely positive, and that they’re just using social media to communicate with their friends and family. So that’s kind of one part for lots of young people. What is happening online is positive and is healthy and is engaging. But we are seeing that for some young people, particularly vulnerable groups, marginalised groups, are having worse outcomes associated with their social media usage.

Elfy Scott:
That’s so interesting. I guess I’m wondering, you know, you mentioned the sort of emotional debate around this. There’s a lot of political noise. I’m wondering, are you finding it hard to cut through that noise? And I suppose I’m wondering, are the voices of young people themselves being heard in all of this?

Dr Louise La Sala:
Yeah, that’s a great question. So when we… So towards the end of last year, there was obviously a lot of noise and a lot of public attention towards what are we going to do about social media? How are we going to keep young people safe online? There were a few different directions as a country, we could have gone. As you know, Australia has moved towards banning young people under the age of 16 from social media.

Were young people involved in that conversation? Did they get a say in implementing that policy? Largely, no. And in actual fact, if you talk to young people about how this ban is going to work, what this is going to mean for them. You’ll find that many young people have already changed their ages on social media. They’re already trying to come up with ways to get around this or to get online. And they’re also just going to end up in other, potentially less regulated, more dangerous places. And I think that’s really important for us to remember. Particularly if mental health and supporting young people is our goal. We need to be aware of where they are so that might no longer be our Instagrams and our TikToks for those under the age of 16. But they certainly will be somewhere. And I think that’s really important for us to keep in mind and to keep young people involved in that conversation. So that not only are we learning from them, but also what we’ve found, particularly with our work here in Orygen, is that when young people are a part of developing the solutions that are meant to support them and help them, they’re so much more meaningful and so much more impactful. So in order for us to kind of keep people safe online or support youth mental health, we need to be asking young people themselves.

Elfy Scott:
Yeah, absolutely. Christine, I saw you nodding a bit through that. Is there anything that you would like to add about how hard it is to cut through the noise? And, you know, whether policymakers are listening to teenagers on these issues?

Dr Christine Grove:
Yeah, I mean, I definitely agree with Louise and the research that her team are doing. It’s really interesting to see that we don’t ask young people about the policies that directly impact them. I think they have an incredible wealth of knowledge that they can share around health literacy, and their access to health literacy and how they’d like to receive that information as well. We’re just doing a huge nationwide study at the moment, looking at drug and alcohol education. And young people have great suggestions there around how we can improve the information that they’re receiving around that particular topic, as well.

And so I think, bringing them into that social media conversation is just as important as bringing in something as heavy handed as a ban. We know that those aren’t the most successful approaches to young people’s challenges. Coming in and being really heavy and hard on that and having a zero tolerance approach doesn’t give young people opportunity to learn, to grow, to have those conversations around their own social media use, their families use, as well as then their parents social media use as well. So it’s a really interesting situation that we are in and very unique to be in right now as well. Because, as Louise was saying, it’s so positive, it’s so helpful. It gives us connection. But then at the same time, you know, it’s that double edge of not knowing what can happen in terms of if we do ban it, where do young people go to stay connected and to be supported online? A lot of research that’s come out from the Australian Psychological Society found that parents themselves don’t know how to manage their own social media use. So if we have parents who are struggling with social media, then how can we anticipate that, you know, young people will be able to support themselves and be able to do that as well in their home environment? So I think we need a bit more of a holistic approach around educating and supporting digital literacy. Rather than coming in and saying no, you can’t use it. I don’t think that’s the most effective way going forward. So my nods are in agreeance. Yeah. We need to do something about them.

Dr Louise La Sala:
And I guess anyone who’s tried to ask 14 or 15 year old not to do something knows that that’s not a great approach. Right? And I think the other thing just to add to that is that when we are considering young people who are struggling with their mental health, what we found in our research is that they’re more likely to use social media to seek support than other young people. And so if we are considering taking this away, but our grand goal is to provide support to young people, we need to be really considering how we’re providing that support and what access to supports they have in the first place. And so I guess I think someone posted our approach to why the social media ban could be more harmful than helpful for the young people who need support the most. So I think that’s really key to this conversation.

Elfy Scott:
Yeah, 100%. And Christine I loved what you said about the holistic approach and educating parents as well. Because if anybody’s seen the boomer parents on iPads they’d know that young people aren’t the only vulnerable people online. But, Chris, can I go back to you as well? A lot is being asked of young people these days in general, and I wanted to speak specifically about young people who play a caring role in their family. So can we speak about how they manage and what kind of support is available?

Dr Christine Grove:
Yeah, sure. Absolutely. I think young carers are a really interesting group within our community. Having, you know, going back and looking at some of the research that I’ve done in the space, which has been over the last decade. So I’ve seen quite a few generational shifts and changes, in this area. And we know just from the research in terms of how many young carers there actually are in Australia. That number is, we’ve got a, you know, a number, but I do think it is an underrepresentation of how many young carers we do have in our communities and within families.

Because we don’t often ask parents when they’re coming in for their medical appointments or to see their specialists for mental health challenges if they have children. Are you a parent? How many kids do you have? What is their role in supporting you in the home? So we don’t actually know exactly how many there are. And that’s important because that leads to funding, that leads to services, that leads to wider distribution of support across Australia to particularly vulnerable areas, like regional remote areas, in our country. And so I think that that number and acknowledging that it is an underrepresentation is really important. And there are a number of reasons too why young people don’t want to share that their parent might have a mental illness or a mental health challenge. And that’s related to stigma in the community. And a lot of young people who I’ve worked with have actually said, you know, it’s a family secret. I don’t want to share mum or dad’s challenges or their illness. It’s not my story to tell. And so they often find that they are dealing and responding to that in their family on their own. And don’t feel comfortable sharing that wider. And so in that, I would really be saying that it would be ideal if we see more of a family responsive approach, that we do ask families if they have children, how many do they have, and then look at trying to support them if we can. If they are in a family context with a mental illness or a mental health challenge.

Some of my research looked at young people’s experiences in these families from age eight onwards. And they do report feeling quite fearful that they might get removed from their family home if they share that their parent has a mental illness and they’re helping out with dinner or with medication, or to get to different appointments. They also feel uncomfortable maybe bringing up that conversation in their family home because, you know, that parent could be having a good day. And so they don’t want to talk about, you know, mental illness or mental health struggles on a really good day. And then on a really tough day, they’re helping and doing some more caregiving responsibilities at home. And so finding that opportunity to talk about being a young carer in their family home doesn’t come up very often. And we also know that families struggle to talk about mental health and mental illness. So it’s rare that they have those kind of conversations from the parent too, talking about their illness and how that has an impact in the family home. So my research also showed that young people do actually want to help. They do want to make that cup of tea. They do want to help out with dinner or groceries. They don’t want to remove that role within their, in their family home. And so acknowledging just how challenging that can actually be when, you know, we want children to be children and young people and, you know, playing in the park, etc. So it can be a really difficult situation to offer services that understand that environment and that context as well.

I actually just finished your book, Elfy, This is a great resource. And I love that you talk about the adult perspective looking back now on that experience. And I do want to acknowledge too, that a lot of young people, you know, report that they do want to help, but then in adulthood, they have quite a different experience looking back at their childhood, being young carers. So, that is a definite resource that I would recommend to folks to learn more about that experience if they do, and are interested.

Elfy Scott:
That’s very kind of you Christine, thank you for the shout out. I really appreciate it. But yeah, I mean, I think what you’re talking about is so many competing pressures on young people and things that we’re just not addressing on a broad scale either. So thank you for explaining all of that.

Lou, Orygen provides a number of services for young people who are facing these challenges. Often utilising technology as a support mechanism. So can you tell me about that and why these kind of, why technology seems to be something that you can turn to and rely on and seems to be effective for young people.

Dr Louise La Sala:
Yeah. So at Orygen, we’ve very much taken the approach that digital technologies and tools are here to stay. And, you know, social media is one of those kind of tools, that digital technologies give young people access to. But when you speak to a young person about, like I said, how they using social media. They’re using it to communicate with their friends and family, but they’re also using it to get support. And at the self-harm and suicide prevention unit, which is where we work, young people say that these are really sensitive, scary topics. Sometimes they’re not quite sure what it is they’re feeling or what it is that they’re going through, and they feel like they’re the only person that feels that way. And so what we’ve learned is that young people use social media, use the internet more broadly to kind of understand their experiences, first and foremost. To see that others… or to validate those experiences and see that others are experiencing something similar. And to get some support or some help with how to deal with that.

The other thing is, you know, with the work that we do at Chat Safe, so Chat Safe is all about supporting young people to communicate safely online about self-harm or suicide. And young people have said to us that it’s easier just to put a post out there and ask for help and see who replies, than walk up to someone and say face to face, “Hey, this is what’s going on for me. I need support.” Or social media or online direct messaging, whatever it might be is an easier way to practice asking for help or saying, “Hey, I need some support here.” So that is why we have taken this kind of harm minimisation approach. How can we amplify or harness the benefits of digital technologies and tools? Things like being able to remain anonymous, practice conversations, ask for help in a less stigmatising way, whilst mitigating some of the risks that we know exacerbate mental health conditions. So things like access to harmful information or harmful content, access to information, particularly about self-harm or suicide methods they’re all things that we strongly advocate towards removing or doing more about because we absolutely need to be doing more about that, but at the same time not taking away what is a lifeline for so many young people.

The other thing I’ll say there is the young people who tell us that they are using these tools for support are young people who aren’t able to access supports offline. So we know that it’s really hard to get good quality mental health support. Not only are wait lists at Headspaces or GPs incredibly long, it can be expensive, it can be really difficult to do. And not too dissimilar to what Chris was saying before, young people have also told us that they don’t want to burden their families with their mental health issues, or with the struggles that they’re experiencing. And don’t necessarily want people to know that they need help. So they’re all the kinds of things that we’re trying to, like I said, use digital tools to help young people get access to high quality mental health support.

I touched on Chat Safe. We’re delivering or developing, in partnership with young people, content that speaks to other young people. So how might we push out a campaign across communities to direct people to mental health support? That’s something we are doing in partnership at the moment with the Victorian Department of Health. We’re notified when a youth suicide occurs. We use social media. We geo target the information and we push out high quality mental health supports via Snapchat, TikTok, Instagram to reach young people where they are and where they’re most likely to be having these conversations to try and yeah, facilitate help seeking. Get young people support.

Elfy Scott:
I know that Orygen peer support is also an integral part of that. And I wonder if you could explain a little bit about young people speaking to other young people on these issues and the value of that. Because I think for a lot of policymakers and maybe a lot of adults in the room, it seems like a bad idea to let, you know, young people speak to young people. And people can have this patronising kind of approach to young people’s experience. So I wonder if you could talk about the value of that experience.

Dr Louise La Sala:
Yeah. So, when you talk to a young person about mental health generally or any topic that they find sensitive or highly stigmatised, particularly among adults, not only will they say they go to online places to get information and support, but their next source of support or information is their peers and their friends.

And so, again, we might not want young people to be having these conversations. We might not want young people to be having these conversations online, but they are happening. And, you know, often when you talk to a young person about what’s going on, they say it’s like a huge weight off their shoulders. Finally, someone is talking to them about what is happening in their lives. We see huge benefits to young people supporting other young people with these, with these issues. But I guess the other kind of part to that is it’s a huge responsibility at times for a young person to manage or hold kind of what’s going on for their friends. And I guess it’s worth considering that, you know, there’s certain ways we talk about these things, certain ways we share information about our mental health struggles. When it comes to young people, and particularly young women, is kind of what the research is showing, is that we are kind of worried about contagion or imitation, particularly with regards to self-harm or suicide ideation.

So we certainly want to be supporting young people to provide support to one another, but we need to be making sure that young people are equipped to be having those conversations, know where to get support to have those conversations, and have a trusted adult in their lives where they can say, “Hey, my friend sent me this” or “My friend said this to me. I want to help, but I don’t know what to do.” And having adults willing and ready to have that conversation.

Elfy Scott:
I mean, Chris, you have dedicated so much of your career to talking about these holistic responses to individual needs and mental health care. So how do you see technology fitting into that? Do you agree with the points that Lou has made?

Dr Christine Grove:
Yeah. Definitely. I think it’s amazing to just hear the level that we can support young people now through social media, and through geo locating different areas and then pushing out accurate information around mental health. One of the key research findings we found were you know, people actually didn’t know how to differentiate between information online. So sometimes they would find stuff that they thought would be really helpful. But actually there’s no evidence behind that type of support at all. And so they can be led down a rabbit hole of not knowing what is accurate online too in terms of ways to best support their mental health. And so it’s fantastic to see great initiatives responding to what’s actually happening. And I think if we do have a ban, then how do we know what they’re accessing? How can we give those supports and address them in that way?

Really interesting, some of my school-based research, and young carers actually identified this as quite heavily, was actually coming in and doing a better job around mental health education, just full stop. Being great with mental health literacy, mental health education in school. So starting in primary school, moving past social emotional learning and social skills into actually looking at what is, you know, healthy mental health, healthy health and education around that. And then if young people need that specialised support or that more individualised approach, they know where to go in that situation. So if we know this is one of the hardest to reach groups in our community—young people—they’re less likely to get help from their GP. Then we need to be finding ways that we can actually access them, and that is through schools and school programming, through all young people. So them all having access to accurate mental health information, and how to manage their digital literacies and their digital online profiles, and then going in and providing that more individualised specialised approach. So if you identify you have a mental health struggle, where do you go? What do you do if you have friends who are struggling, you know, what to do in that situation? And then if you’re having families where there is mental illness or mental health struggles too, where do you go in that situation? So I do think we’re seeing improved mental health programs at schools, but just nowhere near to where we need to be to address some of the challenges that we are seeing in that rise in psychological distress of youth. A lot of young people actually say they’ll search, you know, mental health support for the area and they don’t actually know how to book in to see a GP. They don’t know how to call the counselling hotline.

You know, part of our programs that we offer, we actually call Lifeline or Helpline or call a local GP to show you the steps of how to actually seek help. They say so often we get told to just call Kids Helpline or tell mum or dad, but they don’t know the first step to actually doing that and getting that help. And to do it in a way where they don’t feel stigmatised or they don’t feel like they might get shut down in that conversation. So I think we do have a bit of a way to go in terms of improving general mental health knowledge for young people in schools and in education, and then coming much more further into that, you know, more specific areas that young people might need.

Elfy Scott:
Yeah, absolutely. One question that has occurred to me that I’d love to ask both of you, if you want to jump in, is the difference in the experience between young men and young women online? Can we talk a little bit about the different risks that they’re facing online? And maybe if there should be, sort of, a different approach to how young women and young men deal with these issues in tech spaces.

Dr Louise La Sala:
I can start. We are starting to see some differences in particularly the content that young women are exposed to compared to young men. I guess, I can’t remember if I said this at the beginning, but I kind of see social media as a magnifying glass to what is happening in our societies. I think when we’re talking about what is impacting on youth mental health, social media is one really small part. But the other things that are really impacting young people like housing insecurity, cost of living, gender-based violence, climate anxiety, watching geopolitical conflicts occur across the world—all of these are happening online. And young people are privy to that information, are engaging with that information. And we’re seeing certainly a gender-based approach towards who is exposed to what sort of information and to what extent.

In a study that we—we’ve just submitted it for publishing, so hopefully it’ll be published in the next couple of months—we certainly saw that young women were exposed to content about self-harm or suicide more than young men. We saw that they were engaged in self-harm or suicide-related communities. Now that might have been for help or getting support. It also may have been for grieving or bereavement towards somebody that they had lost to suicide. And we also knew that young women were more likely to feel worse as a result of seeing that content than young men in our sample. And I think that kind of speaks to these stereotypical kind of things we attribute to women in terms of being the caregivers or taking on the emotions of others and trying to support the people around them. And we’re seeing that kind of play out online. But again, it’s kind of just magnifying or amplifying some of those gender-based risk factors that we’re seeing offline.

Elfy Scott:
That’s so interesting. Chris, did you want to weigh in on that one?

Dr Christine Grove:
I don’t really have anything more to add to that. I just agree with Louise, and I think it’s important to acknowledge that. Yeah, we are seeing disproportionate effects to women and young girls with social media, and how we can support them better in those spaces.

Elfy Scott:
Yeah. Go ahead Lou.

Dr Louise La Sala:
The other thing I was going to say, just to kind of piggyback off that, is that we are seeing that disproportionate impact on young women. But I guess also if we took a step back, we also know that young women are often or more often dismissed when they come forward to seek help for their mental health.So a lot of the kind of myth busting that we do in our work is that when a young person, or particularly a young woman, says that they are self-harming or having thoughts of suicide, they’re often labelled as attention-seeking. Their concerns are often dismissed or passed off. Which is not necessarily the case when it comes to young men. And I think that also kind of sits within this idea that traditionally we have seen suicide as a male problem.

But I think it’s really important that all of us here today acknowledge and see that we are seeing increases in self-harm behaviour and suicidal behaviour by young women. And so I think it would be negligent of us to continue seeing this as a male problem and not starting to take the young female experience seriously.

Elfy Scott:
Yeah. Wow, that’s such an important point. Thank you so much for that Lou.

This is another question for both of you. In your observations of teen’s mental health and the policy measures that are currently in place, what is missing? And that is another big question. So I acknowledge that that’s going to take a little while. But are there any clear actions that the government could take right now that would make a positive difference to the lives of teenage girls? And, Chris, maybe we can start with you.

Dr Christine Grove:
Absolutely. More more than happy to. I’ll just add to what Louise was saying before around, even just medical illnesses not even related to mental health. Women often don’t get believed in those situations too. And so we know from a lot of research in that space, and I haven’t done it myself, but just from reading it and engaging with that literature, that they really do struggle to get support just for their medical health, let alone what we’re talking about today. And that’s mental health and their well-being. So it is definitely a very challenging space to be in.

You know, when I first started this research, I would come in pretty heavy handed on interventions for individuals and young people and programs and coming in really hard on that individual level to sort of seek help and go out and, you know, advocate for themselves and develop self resilience. And I was really, you know, strong in that. And there is an absolute space for that for sure, and funding and, you know, making sure policy supports that. But I do think there’s a full body of policy out there currently that needs to be reformed. That doesn’t actually consider the society that women are growing up in, that females are needing to learn how to navigate the space that they’re in. And there is this illusion that women can do it all and have it all, and that there are actually several social barriers that impact women, that that’s small and wider than social media and how we use Instagram, for example.

I don’t think we can talk meaningfully about young women’s and girls’ mental health without acknowledging the society that they are growing up in. I think there’s a huge pressure to have it all, you know. You can be anything, you can be in the boardroom, you can, you know, be body positive, be kind, but be bold. You know, that whole narrative of don’t be too hot or too ambitious. But don’t you know, but you can be a little bit bossy, but maybe not today. So I think that we’re in a culture that celebrates empowerment currently, but it also, you know, we have young girls operating in a contradictory cultural message around devaluing women’s time, their leadership, as well as their safety as we know around domestic violence and, just attacks on women are greatly higher than there are to their counterparts. So I think we need to actually talk about that perfectionist burden on girls and women. And how there is these contradictory messages, you know, surrounding them in the community, in the culture and in society that directly affects them. So for me it’s around naming that, actually saying that that’s what’s happening and that’s the structure that we’re growing up in. It’s embedded in our workplaces, in social media, in schools, even in our family dynamics. And I just don’t think policy addresses this point, you know, perfectly. Or even enough or at all in some spaces.

And then I also think validating that they’re in this really contradictory world where it does tell young people that they need to do it all and then they do end up blaming themselves. So naming it is really important. And an example of that would be you’re not being too sensitive. You actually are, you know, experiencing the situation right now or, you know, you are trying to find balance. And it is really difficult that that’s happening. And so I think being able to help young people and especially girls navigate that, is incredibly important.

Elfy Scott:
I’m sure everybody is just like fist pumping. That’s so good, Christine. Thank you.

Dr Christine Grove:
It took a long time to get to that too. I mean, because it took a lot around that messaging, around resilience and seeing and working with young people so clinically as an educational psychologist, it’s so hard to say “You can do it, you can have it all.” But actually, can you? And so having that conversation around identity and our place in the world as women, I think has an impact on mental health. And I think they’re interlinked quite heavily.

Elfy Scott:
100%. Thank you so much. Lou, do you want to jump in and speak a little bit about anything that the government could do in terms of policy making right now to make a positive difference in the lives of teenage girls?

Dr Louise La Sala:
Yeah. Well, I mean, that was so well put. So thank you for saying that. I couldn’t agree more. I guess kind of, I was very similar to Christine in the sense that so much of my early work really focused on empowering young people to advocate for themselves, acknowledging what mental health is, what that feels like when you need support. And that it being okay to reach out for support. And I think as a society, we’ve kind of come a very long way in now having better conversations about mental health, people being much more willing to seek support or talk about these things with their friends and families. I guess, where policymakers can really now support all our young people, but everyone really, is that it is one thing to equip people to say, “Hey, I need help here. Hey, my mental health is struggling.” It is another thing to make sure that we are adequately resourced to respond to that demand in help seeking, or to the increase in what we’re seeing for young people today with regards to their mental health. So I think, you know, individual approaches only go so far. We need a system that is designed to then provide the support that we’re encouraging people to reach out for.

I was talking to the Kids Helpline recently. You know, they can be at best a 30 minute wait to speak to a counsellor. And that’s if someone has gone and picked up the call because they know how. So, and that’s like I said, at best. It can be far more than that. So there’s certainly more we need to be doing from a systems perspective. But also, you know, like Christine said, the social determinants of health—you know, economic policy is mental health policy. Housing policy is mental health policy. There are certainly these kind of bigger structures that kind of dictate the ways we live, learn and play.

Elfy Scott:
Oh my God. We’re having such heavy hitters this afternoon. This is a fantastic conversation. Thank you so much for that, Lou. I really appreciate that contribution. We are going to have a Q&A shortly. So if people could please submit questions using the function that I have never used before, but I assume is on the back end for you, then, please do. Or you can pop them in the chat, I suppose, as we’re going through.

But I’ll ask Christine and Lou just one last question and then make sure you jump in. So for the people listening in today who live or work with teenage girls, what advice would you offer them? How can we, as individuals and as a community, actively support their mental health?

Dr Louise La Sala:
Christine?

Dr Christine Grove:
I’m sure we both have some things we can add. Yeah, I’ll just… thanks Lou. I’ll jump in there quickly and just say, I think it’s incredibly powerful to see and support women in the workplace and in environments where you might see other women struggling. So I think if opening the door and supporting the next generation of girls coming through, having areas that, you know, we are supporting and understanding what women and girls are going through is incredibly helpful.

But I do think modelling imperfection and boundary setting. So giving permission that girls can do the same. No. Is a full sentence, modelling that actually, you know, you might not be able to have it all, but you can do it all across your career or across your lifetime. And so I think modelling healthy boundaries, and even identifying when you do feel uncomfortable that it’s okay to then seek help or to remove yourself from that situation. And I do think that that message around the world is confusing and contradictory. We do have systems that are challenging that we’re in, and that we’re all trying our best to make through it. So a much more realistic approach and understanding around the world that we are in currently.

Elfy Scott:
Yeah, absolutely. And Lou?

Dr Louise La Sala:
I was just going to say listen to them and take them seriously. Kind of piggybacking off what I said before, young people are often—particularly young women—are often dismissed, labelled as attention seeking. Their needs or their challenges are overlooked as not being as important as other things that are happening. So my… yeah, I think we would go much further by listening to young women, taking them seriously and letting them be part of the solution. And that’s not to add on to them about how to fix, you know, what in many ways is a very broken world. But that is saying, “Hey, how can we work together to make things easier for you, to make life better for you? And what would make a meaningful difference as opposed to just a bit of a tick box?”

Dr Christine Grove:
I was going to say the tick box is so critical, and I think that happens with young people too. Oh we’ll bring them on board to get their advice on this policy, but it’s actually just a tick box exercise, and we’re not seeing the feedback or the changes implemented. And then fed back to them there either. I will just add to that, if that’s okay Elfy? To what Louise was saying around mentoring is incredible.

So I do know, for example, a lot of women and girls take on service roles or volunteer positions or a lot of caregiving in workplaces and in school settings. And so I think mentoring, you know, women, you know, why are we making those decisions? Who holds the power in those situations? And addressing some of those kind of cultural identities and thoughts that we have of girls and women in the community and how that plays out in the decisions they make really early on. And I do think we’ll see some shifts in mental health and wellbeing over time. It might not be immediate, but I definitely think, you know, over time. Because there’s a generation of, you know, mothers out there and women out there who go, but you can vote, you can get a bank account like we’ve broken so many barriers that you now can have as women. And I just think we’re in a time where we’ve got those steps, they are incredible, but we’re still being impacted. That barrier is still there. But maybe more invisible. It’s not so clearly structural. And so making sure we have those conversations, and mentoring and supporting the next generations coming through is really important.

Elfy Scott:
Yeah, 100%. And thank you for ending that on a slightly hopeful note. Yeah, still true that there’s a long way to go. So I think we can jump into audience questions now. So I’ll open up our little Q&A here. Okay. So let’s start down the bottom. This question is from Ava. What are the changes that we can make to ensure that the 30 minute wait on Kids Helpline is shortened?

Dr Louise La Sala:
I feel like… and I’ve just literally haven’t looked at all the questions yet, but I feel like these answer might answer them all. But to me, it’s resourcing. We need the resources so that organisations such as Kids Helpline, but other mental health services that are potentially more culturally specific or culturally safe for certain groups of young people are available and are able to deal with their demand. But we also need an empowered and equipped workforce. Be that peer workers, professional workers. There’s kind of scope and an important spot for all of those sort of key players in this field. So for me, it’s resourcing and being able to respond.

Elfy Scott:
Yeah. Christine, you want to jump in?

Dr Christine Grove:
Yeah. Sure. Just yeah, definitely, definitely agree. And it’s so hard that resourcing debate because we don’t have enough clinicians. We don’t have enough psychologists. And so you can’t put inexperienced folks in, you know, those positions of answering phone calls from Kids Helpline. And so there’s quite a challenge there, even just improving our medical force and having more psychologists and more social workers and counselors and, you know, equipping that workforce, making it attractive to bring folks into that area.

And so it is much wider than, okay, let’s, you know, have more phones or let’s just bring in more clinicians. It’s, we don’t have enough clinicians. We haven’t got enough resourcing into some of these services. And often what we can see is they get cut quite frequently on different cycles. So, they might start to be doing really well. Particularly I’ve noticed for young carers. We see we’re addressing that area really well. There’s some great services happening. And then because it’s doing so well it gets cut the next funding round. And so it’s really important that we do have longevity. And we look at maybe a ten year plan around professions, and actually supporting growth within that to reduce some of the strain of the workforce as well.

Elfy Scott:
Yeah. That’s such an important point. There this is another question that I am particularly attached to. So thank you. Michelle. Would you like to comment on how girls are coping with the crisis facing the natural world, including climate change?

Dr Christine Grove:
Really interesting. A few colleagues are doing research on this. I don’t research this area directly, but clinically I can speak to it a little bit. I am seeing a huge increase in referrals, and young people experiencing climate anxiety. So they are coming in for support to talk about the impact that climate changes are having on the world, on their futures, on their decision making around if they have a family, on if they have future kids. And so it is definitely having an impact and they aren’t coping. You know, most young people. I can’t speak, obviously, for all young people, I have only seen this clinically. Which is a very, you know, minute population. But it is definitely having an impact. A lot of youth who come through, it is one of their issues that they discuss in session, and talk about how climate change and how it’s also not being addressed is a source of issue and challenge as well. Around how there’s no, there doesn’t seem to be any movement or there’s no movement towards addressing that challenge.

So I think it is there. And it’s really important that we do acknowledge it and have a look at what research is coming out in the next few years on how this is actually impacting decision making and identity and the mental health of young people, because it is, I think, also just as equally important as social media and the impact social media is having based on what I’m seeing clinically. So sometimes clinic, you know, sometimes research is advanced and it’s ahead of clinical practice. And then sometimes we see things happening clinically and then research has to catch up. And so from what I’m seeing is we needing research to catch up and policy to catch up for what young people are reporting as a major issue. Equal to body image and equal to housing issues, is climate change.

Dr Louise La Sala:
Yeah. I would just add to that. Sorry, I’m just about to put in the chat now actually, if I get it right. Sure. There’s a report that we just released last year, which is on climate concerns and young people’s mental health. This report suggests that 6 in 10 young people are concerned about the climate. There is within the report a gendered breakdown if people are interested. But I guess also just having now done some work with Mission Australia, what we’ve seen is this is becoming what is most important to young people over time. And I believe as of 2024 is in the top four things that young people are worried about. So I certainly think it is something that we need to be doing a lot more about.

But Christine’s right. The research is slow to kind of really touch on what this is looking like for young people, but this report is certainly a good place to start.

Elfy Scott:
Yeah. Fantastic. And thank you again for the question, Michelle.

We’ve got a question here from Rachel who asks, how can we better support children in primary school who have autism related anxiety, fears, negative self-talk, self-harming behaviors, school refusal, etc. Who have very minimal or no Department of Education funded psychological support at school. In particular, young girls who heavily mask to get through school and academically / on paper present ‘fine’ at school. Lou, do you want to jump in?

Dr Louise La Sala:
I will just jump in. This is not my area. Like I said, here at Orygen, we work with those aged 12 to 25, predominantly. So primary schools is not an area that we have done a lot of work with. I am doing some work with the Black Dog Institute and colleagues at UNSW to develop a self-harm intervention, or an early detection of what might be going on for primary school aged young people. Because we’re certainly seeing increases in these behaviors, and in, you know, specific challenges like this question suggests. So I would say that we don’t have a lot of good supports for primary school aged young people currently.

Elfy Scott:
Yeah. Well, thank you for the question, Rachel. Yeah, that was a very good point. And hopefully we will see more support.

Dr Louise La Sala:
Watch this space.

Elfy Scott:
Watch this space. Okay. And, just as a final question, I… let’s end on this question from Ava because I really, I think this is an important one, but what are the better ways that policymakers can consult young people? And are their systems already in place, or does real change need to happen?

Dr Louise La Sala:
Both. Christine, feel free to jump in. But I would say real change needs to happen in that young people need to be involved. Like Christine said from the very beginning, it needs to not be tokenistic and not a tick box like “We’ve created this policy. Now what the young people think?” They need to be involved from the conceptualisation of that. But I would also say that, you know, I know that this is not easy. And not everyone just has groups of young people ready and willing and able to kind of speak to these issues. So there are certainly, you know, really good youth advisory groups within a number of organisations. We’ve got one here in Orygen. Friends of mine at Project Rockit have a fantastic youth group. The eSafety have a fantastic… There’s so many youth groups that could be called upon to consult with.

Dr Christine Grove:
Yeah, absolutely agree. I think tapping into some of the youth groups we already have out there. Because it is, it’s expensive to develop a youth advisory group. I know just in our research team, we have an ongoing group. And that to fund their, you know, food to fund their transport to do it really authentically so it’s not a tick box exercise, it does require a lot of resourcing. And to make sure that they feel heard and are able to contribute and then see change too. And actually see their contributions making an impact, and actually changing policy, you know, reform as well. So I think that that’s really important to engage with those groups and really do it authentically. But then who’s at the table having a young person…

If we’re talking about any issue that require… that is about young people, we should have a requirement that they’re at that table. That they’re in those board meetings. That they’re, you know, in their in those interviews where they discussing those issues. That we at least have some representation across the different areas for young people. And it’s interesting that we don’t, because they have such great contributions. They want to engage, they want to contribute. And it’s not a matter of a disengaged youth. It’s not a matter of, you know, a whole cohort of young people who don’t want to address these issues. In fact, there are so many that do. And so tapping into that as a resource across different areas outside of the incredible advisory groups and definitely consulting with them. But having a seat at the table for them whenever we have a conversation about a young person is incredibly important.

So, for example, all my ethics applications, all of my research grants are reviewed and supported and engage with young people for me to be able to go in and do any of that kind of research. Is this a question I should be asking? You know, how can we adapt this to make it better or, you know, easier to interpret or harder? Maybe it’s too easy and not age appropriate. And so I think making sure that we give them the time and day and the power that they deserve to be joining these conversations. I think some research has come out and said that they are one of our most educated group of young people, of people ever in our history. And so actually seeing that with respect and having their voice at the table. Given just that, they are the most well educated, they are, you know, incredibly literate around digital technology and tools for example, means that they deserve a seat at the table. And I’m definitely one for advocating for that.

Dr Louise La Sala:
And it’s okay to get it wrong. You know, like I… when we talk to young people, sometimes we don’t have the resourcing to do everything to the grand plan that we would like to. But, you know, we say like, what’s the alternative? Like, not include them at all. And so, as long as we’re really upfront about our expectations, what we’re able to do with the funding or the resourcing that we have, what the likelihood of our outcomes or outputs are going to be. So long as we kind of approach these situations authentically and honestly, it works.

So it doesn’t need to be kind of gold standards engagement. It can be little bits until organisations feel better able to do that or that acknowledge the resourcing that you have. It’s still very important.

Dr Christine Grove:
I’ve noticed too, Louise. I don’t know if you’ve noticed this as well in your work, but young people don’t expect a perfect curated answer. No. They don’t expect you to come in and fix everything and be able to solve climate change. But what they do hope is that we’re making steps to addressing the complexity of that situation.

Dr Louise La Sala:
Yep.

Dr Christine Grove:
And that we’re including them in the conversation to even, you know, admit to what could be occurring, I think is the first steps for them as well. So you’re right it doesn’t have to be perfect. Absolutely. At all. And I think this reflects the world that we are in. That it is messy and complicated. And we’re trying to do the best that we can.

Dr Louise La Sala:
Yeah.

Elfy Scott:
Yeah. I think those are brilliant points to end on. And to end on listening to young people and actually simply sitting down with them and giving them a seat at the table is a great way to leave this conversation.

So thank you so much, Lou and Christine, for that. Without the audience able to applaud, I will applaud for them.

Dr Louise La Sala:
I will applaud you Christine and Elfy.

Dr Christine Grove:
I’ll applaud you Louise and Elfy.

Elfy Scott:
Well, thank you so much again and thank you so much to the Victorian Women’s Trust team for running this event. I believe they’re also popping some resources in the chat for anybody who is interested. There will be a recording of this event published in the coming days. And the Trust has been running events like these Lunch Break Sessions since February, covering important topics like energy, abortion access and housing. But until next time, thank you so much for joining us again and farewell. Bye.

Dr Christine Grove:
Thanks everyone for attending. Bye.

Ends