Centre for Mental Health Research, ANU
Research Field: Mental Health
Anxiety is one of the most common mental health problems in adolescents and can severely affect a young person’s life. Preventing it is critical to reducing mental health problems in the community and to ensuring that young people reach their full potential. Dr Calear’s current project, the Y-Worri project, aims to test the effectiveness of an online anxiety prevention program and to identify the best method to deliver this program in schools.
The program involves classroom teachers and youth workers from “headspace”. The Y-Worri Project will involve 33 schools from across Australia and six headspace centres. Alison has been involved in a number of community engagement activities including the AFFIRM Youth Ambassador (AYA) program in ACT schools. She has also been involved in the delivery of numerous professional development workshops and presentations.
In 2012, this has included workshops for college teachers and counsellors in the ACT, NSW regional school counsellors and school-based youth health nurses in Queensland.