New articles and reports

Drafting a Blueprint for School-based Mental Health Service Systems. The new monograph from the Research and Training Center for Children's Mental Health, "School-Based Mental Health: An Empirical Guide for Decision-Makers", provides practical information and advice for those engaged in developing and implementing effective evidence-based services in the school setting. For the full document go to http://rtckids.fmhi.usf.edu/rtcpubs/study04/index.htm

Electronic Journal of Research in Educational Psychology: A bilingual (English & Spanish) publication of regional, national and international scope. Vol. 5 (1), is available online, and is devoted to vocational and carreer guidance.
Vol. 5 (2) covers a wide range of areas.

PsiComentarios, un Sitio de Información e Interacción, Consulta, Orientación y Derivación Psicológica que se originó como una revista de distribución por e-mail. Los temas que desarrollamos son: Educación, Familia, Pareja, Sexualidad, Trastornos, Psicoterapias, Organizaciones, Deportes y Entretenimiento, Cultura, Sociedad y Política.

UCLA School Mental Health Project - Learning problems and learning disabilities. This packet focuses on a wide spectrum of learning problems and emphasizes new directions for classification and intervention.

The 2008 Olympics project. The 2008 BEIJING CESEP PROJECT is a follow-up to the Athens Spirit project. CESEP is a culture, education, sport, ethics, and drug free initiative in collaboration with ISPA, World Anti-Doping Agency, United Nations, and Justice for Athletes.

The tyranny of therapism. The authors of One Nation Under Therapy question the notion that uninhibited emotional openness is good for our mental health.

The United Nations study on violence against children. The study is based on governmental responses to a questionnaire generated by the independent expert and a process of national, regional and sub regional consultations, and field visits. The core message of the report is that no violence against children is justified and all violence against children is preventable.

School prevention resources - From the U.S. Department of Education Office of Safe and Drug-Free Schools, in collaboration with ED's Emergency Response and Crisis Management.

Violence and Aggression: The Effectiveness of Universal School-Based Programs for the Prevention of Violent and Aggressive Behavior: A Report on Recommendations of the Task Force on Community Preventive Services.

The School Preparedness Virtual Town Hall has been archived and can now be accessed. This is a video stressing a new way to look at school preparedness. The approach emphasizes a collaborative using of outside agencies to prepare for school emergencies. Go to: http://www.vodium.com/goto/dhs/schoolprep.asp

The U.S. Department of Education Office of Safe and Drug-Free Schools, in collaboration with their Emergency Response and Crisis Management Technical Assistance Center, has announced the release of three new publications presenting in-depth information and resources addressing key issues in school emergency management.
1. Tapping into Nontraditional Community Partners for Emergency Management discusses various partners and strategies that can be used to support school and district emergency management efforts: http://ercm.ed.gov/views/documents/TapIn2CmunityPartnrs4ERMgmt.pdf
2. Coping with the Death of a Student or Staff Member highlights the range of impact death can have on a school community; offers suggestions for responding to a loss; and discusses strategies for recovery: http://ercm.ed.gov/views/documents/CopingW_Death_StudentOrStaff.pdf
3. Emergency Management Opportunities and Challenges for Non-Public Schools provides an overview of non-public chools as well as the challenges and opportunities they have as it relates to school-based emergency management: http://ercm.ed.gov/views/documents/ERMgmtOppts_Challngs4N_PS.pdf

Responding to Allegations of Student Sexual Assault - Procedures for Victorian Government Schools, Australia details the actions that Principals must take when responding to allegations of sexual assault or inappropriate sexual behaviour which occur where the school has primary care of the student.

Bullying: Help your child handle a school bully. Bullying at school is becoming more common. Some children may be at higher risk than others, and the consequences are serious. Take steps to protect your children against bullying. From the Mayo Clinic.

The National School Safety Center [NSSC] Review of School Safety Research- published in Jan 2006. This 36 page document starts with bulleted information from 2005 and goes back to 1978 research surveys. This contains summaries of key government agencies and other private studies --primarily reviewing indicators relevant to aspects of school safety andschool climate.

Bullies to Buddies: How to turn your enemies into friends. A new book by ISPA member Izzy Kalman on how to cope effectively with bullying - an innovative and creative approach to the problem. For more information, go to Izzy's website at: http://bullies2buddies.com/audio_cd/index.html

Resources from SAMHSA - The Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration has created a set of fact sheets especially for families coping with crisis. For specific SAMHSA links, go to the LINKS page.

General psychology

To celebrate World Mental Health Week, MMHA released a series of new factsheets in several languages: http://www.mmha.org.au/find/resources

* Understanding Mental Illness * Mental Health & Heart Disease * Mental Health in a changing world - The Impact of Culture and Diversity * What is a Mental Illness? * What is Schizophrenia? * What is a Personality Disorder?
* What is an Eating Disorder? * What is an Anxiety Disorder?

To Reap Psychotherapy’s Benefits, Get a Good Fit, by Richard A. Friedman, M.D. New York Times, August 21, 2007. If the outcome may be months or years away, how can a person tell whether his psychotherapy is any good?

Despite being richer, people are not happier than in earlier times. Only government can solve the problem, with a more caring attitude. And more therapists. Article from the Telegraph, 7 May, 2006.

Personality tests, if they worked, would be very useful. Psychology is a science, right? So what’s the problem? New Yorker article by Malcolm Gladwell explores psychology’s swamp.

Harvard psychologist Jerome Kagan argues that inborn temperament stays with us through our lives. By Christopher Shea, August 29, 2004 (The Boston Globe.)

Eudaemonia, The Good Life. An interview talk with Martin Seligman. Clinical psychology, social psychology has, in our lifetimes, been able to relieve an enormous amount of suffering, notes Martin Seligman. "Can psychologists can make people lastingly happier?," he asks. From EDGE, March, 2004.

A therapy that makes a clean slate of past - returning to the past has fallen out of fashion among mental health professionals over the last 15 years. Research has convinced many therapists that understanding the past is not required for healing. By Alix Spiegel, The New York Times, 15th February, 2006.

Children in the world

Dutch children have been rated the most fortunate children in Europe. Their parents go out of their way to please them, and teachers expect less of them than some of their European counterparts. Read the full UNICEF report (November, 2007): An overview of child well-being in rich countries.

Human Rights Tools - Providing human rights professionals with easy access to the best available online resources. A new website for human rights professionals. It offers four services: 1. A library of carefully selected and commented resources. 2. Key resources for country analysis. Daily updated human rights headlines.

Little by Little. This captivating site follows a group of kids from a private school in Northern California as they visit a Tanzanian village to lavish a schoolhouse and its students with supplies, aid, and boundless enthusiasm. It's touching to see video clips of the Americans, many of them African-American or Latino, speaking of the enormous challenges their new friends face. But it's the Tanzanian children who give this site its most poignant moments as they describe the ravages of AIDS, squirm through an American-style sex ed class, and raise their voices in song. The site's sophisticated design presents lush photos and video and audio interviews -- and contrasts stirringly with the grinding poverty that the small school contends with. But with friends like these, it's hard not to believe that things will get better.

A shoulder to cry on. In Swaziland in southern Africa one in 10 households is run by a child. Society has been hollowed out by HIV and Aids. Orphans are vulnerable to abuse and exploitation. Some men infected by HIV believe they can be cured by having sex with a child. But now Unicef has set up a unique scheme to protect them. From the BBC, February 24, 2007.

UNESCO's midterm global review of the International Decade for a Culture of Peace and Non-Violence for the Children of the World, 2001-2010 is now available.
Click here for the French version.

UNESCO launches a tool to put social science research at the service of public policy-making. Designed and developed under the aegis of the Management of Social Transformations (MOST) Programme, this service will be freely accessible on the website of the Organization from 15 November 2007. It will provide customized access to policy-relevant material (case studies) according to specific locations (city, country, region) and/or themes related to social transformations (urbanization, migration phenomena, human rights, sustainable development, etc.)

The health threat from legal drugs like alcohol and tobacco is much greater than that from illegal narcotics - new report from the World Health Organization. Click here for a summary of the report in English. Summaries are also available in:
Arabic Chinese French Portuguese Spanish Russian

NOVA - World in the Balance In the time it takes you to read this, roughly 400 babies will be born, edging the world's population closer to the 6.5 billion mark. Incredibly, it took from the start of human history until 1804 for the world's population to reach a billion people. Two hundred years later, it takes only 12 years to add a billion, and we're careening to a whopping 9 billion people by 2050 if the world's families exceed the magical birth rate of two kids per household...

The United Nations Non-Governmental Liaison Service (NGLS) is launching a new section of its website that will provide up-to-date information on UN reform with a special focus on UN / Civil Society Relations. The new section also showcases background information on the reform process, including reports issued by the Secretary-General and the Secretary-General's Panel of Eminent Persons on UN Civil Society Relations, statements by Member States, perspectives from the NGO community, background papers and more. Visit the website: http://www.un.org/reform/dossier.html

UNICEF's 2005 Annual Report on the State of the World's Children
On the UNICEF website you will also find the outcome documents of the special sessions on children and youth held at the United Nations in May, 2002, "A World Fit For Children."
The 2007 report is an overview of child well-being in rich countries. (English) (French) (Italian) (Spanish)

Protect Children Not Guns - A Children's Defense Fund Report, March, 2007. Each and every day America continues to lose far too many children to gun violence in towns, cities and rural areas all across the United States. Data from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reveals that every day, nearly eight children or teens are killed by gun violence in America — 235 each month.

Education for All Global Monitoring Report/Genre et éducation pour tous: le pari de l’égalité/Educación para Todos: Hacia la Igualdad entre los Sexos.

Information updates from UNESCO.

OECD/UNESCO study identifies regional disparities in student performance: Literacy Skills for the World of Tomorrow, based on data gathered in the context of the OECD's Program for International Student Assessment. For an executive summary of the findings, click here.

From Bullets to Blackboards: Education for Peace in Latin America and Asia. By Emily Vargas Baron and Hernando Bernal Alarcon. Published by the Inter-American Development Bank. Lessons learned from 10 exemplary education policies and programs developed in nine Latin American and Asian nations. Case studies of successful education policies and programs developed during or after conflicts on topics such as: education reform policies; early childhood development; basic, primary and bilingual education; girls’ and women’s education; vocational skills and citizenship training for ex-combatants and displaced families; and training for human rights and democracy.

Armed Conflict Creating Crisis in Education for 43 million Children, New Save the Children Report Finds. More than 43 million children living in countries wracked by war and armed conflict are being left without the chance to go to school, according to a new report.

Child poverty. At the United Nations Summit in 2000, world leaders pledged to halve extreme poverty by 2015. Urging governments to follow through on their promises, the Stop Child Poverty campaign works to raise awareness about the problem. The site includes articles about such issues as education, health and slavery as well as information on the UN Millennium Development Goals.

Archived articles and reports

More information is available on the LINKS page