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It is likely that young people who are both Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander and LGBTQA+ would be at increased risk for poor mental health outcomes due to the layered impacts of discrimination they experience; however, there is very little empirical evidence focused on the mental health and wellbeing of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander LGBTQA+ young people. The current study represents a qualitative exploration of wellbeing among Aboriginal LGBTQA+ young people. This study consisted of semi-structured interviews and focus groups with Aboriginal LGBTQA+ young people aged 14–25 years old in the Perth metropolitan area of Western Australia. Thematic analysis identified seven major themes that were significant to participants’ wellbeing: identity, family, community, visibility, services, stigma and navigating.

The ‘Breaking the Silence’ research project is one of the first to focus on the unique experiences of Aboriginal and/or Torres Strait Islander LGBTIQ+ people living in Western Australia. The report presents the first phase of a twopart research project that explores how a range of health, social support and education organisations respond to the needs of Aboriginal and/or Torres Strait Islander people, living in Western Australia and identifying as LGBTIQ+. This report presents the findings of focus groups, interviews and surveys with staff employed within a range of organisations that work closely with Aboriginal and/or LGBTIQ+ individuals. The discussion explores the extent to which diverse health, social and emotional wellbeing, education and community services meet the needs of participants, how staff working in these organisations are supported and what else is needed to provide effective and responsive services for Aboriginal and/or Torres Strait Islander clients who also identify as LGBTIQ+. Please see the ’Breaking the Silence: Insights into the Lived Experiences of WA Aboriginal/LGBTIQ+ People, Community Summary Report’ on findings from a survey distributed to Aboriginal and/or Torres Strait Islander LGBTIQ+ in the community of Western Australia.

The ‘Breaking the Silence’ research project is one of the first to focus on the unique experiences of Aboriginal and/or Torres Strait Islander LGBTIQ+ people living in Western Australia. Research focusing on the intersection of Indigeneity and gender/sexual diversity is severely lacking in Australia. This is the first survey to comprehensively capture the experiences of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander LGBTIQ+ Western Australians. Previously, major research pertaining to LGBTIQ+ Australians rarely just focused on Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander same sex attracted or gender variant individuals (Bonson, 2017; Dudgeon, et. al., 2017; Growing Up Queer, 2014; Hill, et. al., 2021; Uink, et. al., 2020; Whitton, et. al, 2015). This summary report presents the key findings of a state-wide survey completed by Aboriginal and/or Torres Strait Islander people, living in Western Australia and identifying as LGBTIQ+. Findings about discrimination, homophobia and the ways in which participants are included and accepted within their own families and the wider community are presented. The report also provides a focus on the positive aspects of participants’ lives; including how they experience pride and inclusion and a sense of belonging to their Aboriginal and/or Torres Strait Islander and/or LGBTIQ+ communities. This summary report has important information for organisations that provide health and social support services to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people who identify as LGBTIQ+, including the extent to which diverse health, social and emotional wellbeing; education and community services meet the needs of participants.This report also includes a section describing how the findings from the community compare and contrast with those of workers in a range of health, social support and education services from the first phase of the study. (See: “Breaking the Silence: Insights from WA Services Working with Aboriginal/ LGBTIQ+ People,”).

Concerns have been raised that smartphones may harm children and families. Arguably, risk-driven discourses are not always evidence-based. This is a problem, because blanket assumptions of risk drowns out nuanced empirical questions of what constitutes “good” parenting when it comes to smartphone use, and for whom. Here we outline three logical missteps which have contributed to the deficit zeitgeist—ignoring context, misinterpreting effect, and conflation. Further, we speak to questions about parents of young children, by refocusing our multiverse analysis on 800+ parents. We ask– where are the links between parental phone use and parenting? Are these robust versus frail or positive versus negative? After re-examining our 84 analytic choices (adopting existing measures), patterns revealed fragility in this case. The few findings that did emerge implicated technoference, not smartphone use, in relation to negative parenting. We encourage continued rigorous and scientific dialogue, to accrue good evidence for families and children.

© 2020 The Authors. Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd on behalf of Association for Child and Adolescent Mental Health. Background: Concerns have been raised regarding the potential negative impacts of parents’ smartphone use on the parent–child relationship. A scoping literature review indicated inconsistent effects, arguably attributable to different conceptualizations of parent phone use and conflation of phone use with technological interference. Methods: Based on a sample of n = 3, 659 parents collected in partnership with a national public broadcaster, we conducted a multiverse analysis. We explored 84 different analytic choices to address whether associations were weak versus robust, and provide clearer direction for measurement, theory, and practice. Effects were assessed in relation to p values, effect sizes, and AIC; we further conducted a meta-analytic sensitivity check. Results: Direct associations between smartphone use and parenting were relatively weak and mixed. Instead, the relation between use and parenting depended on level of technological interference. This pattern was particularly robust for family displacement. At low levels of displacing time with family using technology, more smartphone use was associated with better (not worse) parenting. Conclusions: Our results indicate fragility in findings of risks for parental smartphone use on parenting; there were few concerns in this regard. Rather, at low levels of technological interference, more phone use was associated with higher parenting quality. Scholars should avoid generalized narratives of family risk and seek to uncover real effects of smartphone use on family outcomes across diverse households and contexts.

While transformative learning has been investigated in a range of contexts, there remains little known about the extent to which higher education is transformative for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students. Therefore, this study explores the experiences of Indigenous students undertaking university studies in order to understand the nuances and complexities of their journeys into and throughout the cultural interface within the context of higher education. This qualitative interpretive study applied narrative inquiry to investigate the experiences of 19 undergraduate Indigenous university students. Written narratives, focus groups and in-depth interviews were used to collate 19 individual student stories for analysis and interpretation. The key themes emergent from these narratives related to the students’ development of self-efficacy, the negotiation of their families’ perceptions and expectations and the affirming of their cultural identities as Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people. The two key theoretical concepts used to guide the discussion of the themes were Nakata’s (2007) cultural interface theory and Mezirow’s (1991) transformative learning theory. The findings of this study revealed that university learning had fostered, for most of the student participants, a sense of transformation and change. New relationships with peers were found to be a critical part of the students’ support network while at university. As the students progressed throughout their studies, they gained confidence and a sense of belonging within the university community. Such enablers fostered an increased sense of self-worth and wellbeing that further developed the students’ sense of self-efficacy and ability to succeed at the cultural interface of higher education. Family was seen as vitally important in relation to support for the students but also at times a challenge to be negotiated carefully. Finally, it was also found that university had strengthened the student

The daily ebb-and-flow of emotions serve as “building blocks” for psychological health (Wichers, 2013). Thus, understanding day-to-day emotional dynamics of youth embedded in the context of socioeconomic disadvantage can provide valuable insight for mental health conditions. This thesis utilized Experience Sampling Methodology (ESM) to map a range of emotional experiences among disadvantaged youth, including emotional responses across differing contexts, emotional reactivity to stressors, and emotional inertia. Data were derived from the “How do you feel?” project, in which two hundred and six socioeconomically disadvantage youth reported their emotional states, social contexts and recent experiences of stressors, five times per day for seven days, using smartphones (i.e. the ESM phase). Adolescents’ psychopathology symptoms were assessed at pre-and post ESM. Hierarchical linear modelling (HLM) was used for main analyses. Study 1 investigated adolescents' emotional responses to a recent stressor, and the conditioning effect of social context on these emotional responses. Findings suggested that adolescents' emotional responses to stressors were dampened when in the presence of peers, versus being alone or with family. Study 2 narrowed the lens to focus on individual differences in adolescents' reactivity to daily stressors based on youths’ externalizing symptomatology. Findings suggested a linear association between externalizing and emotion reactivity, such that adolescents with higher externalizing symptoms experienced greater increases in sadness, anger and loneliness, and greater decreases in excitement post-stressor, compared to their less-symptomatic peers. The third and final study further investigated the conditioning effect of adolescents’ externalizing symptoms by examining the relation between externalizing and the carry-over effects of emotions from one-time point to the next (i.e. emotional inertia). Adolescents higher in externalizing symptoms demonstr

Modecki, K. L., Low‐Choy, S., Vasco, D., Vernon, L., & Uink, B. (2021). Commentary response: Smartphone use and parenting: Re‐stratifying the multiverse for families of young children. Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry, 62(12), 1497-1500. https://doi.org/10.1111/jcpp.13433

Hill, B., Uink, B., Bonson, D., Dodd, J., Bennett, S. (2021). New research shows how Indigenous LGBTIQ+ people don’t feel fully accepted by either community. The Conversation. https://theconversation.com/new-research-shows-how-indigenous-lgbtiq-people-dont-feel-fully-accepted-by-either-community-161096