Synthetic cannabinoids found in 13% of school vapes tested

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13% of vapes confiscated from English schools contained synthetic cannabinoids mis-sold as THC. Refillable vapes and social media platforms enable this dangerous trend.

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Identity, place and belonging: The new cornerstone of school-based approaches to student wellbeing?

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The Connected Belonging model argues that schools should support young people’s relationships to their community, culture and peers, rather than focusing on individual skills like “grit” and resilience. Should centre identity and relationships in our work with young people?

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Supporting student mental health after natural disasters: What role can schools play?

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Meta-analysis of 13 studies found school-based interventions reduced PTSD, depression and anxiety after natural disasters, with effects strongest immediately post-intervention.

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Mental health admissions to medical wards: 65% increase in a decade for young people

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Mental health admissions to acute medical wards rose 65% for young people in England (2012-2022), with eating disorder admissions up 515% and anxiety admissions doubling in 10 years. Self-harm admissions accounted for more than half of the total. Adolescent girls by far the biggest group affected.

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Healing takes time: Can cognitive therapy for PTSD help young people in CAMHS? Insights from DECRYPT

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PTSD in young people is common, complex, and often entangled with depression, anxiety, and multiple traumatic experiences. A major new UK trial (DECRYPT) tested whether a structured form of trauma-focused cognitive therapy (CT-PTSD) can work in real CAMHS settings for those with the most severe difficulties.

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Can preventing childhood maltreatment reduce depression?

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Researchers pulled together evidence from more than half a million people to test a simple but important idea: if childhood maltreatment raises the risk of adult depression, could reducing maltreatment help prevent it? The answer, as always, is more complicated than it first appears.

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Mind the age gap: Young adults may benefit less from NHS psychological therapies

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If NHS Talking Therapies work so well, why are recovery rates lower for young adults? Saunders and colleagues analysed data from 1.5 million people to find out, and the results show an urgent need to rethink how we support young people in distress.

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Do hobbies protect against adolescent substance misuse? Not so fast…

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A new study claims hobbies reduce substance misuse in adolescents, but are we mistaking correlation for causation? Before we start fiddling with interventions, this blog explores the risks of jumping to conclusions.

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Is vaping really a gateway to smoking? New review of youth vaping confirms uncertainty

Clinicians who withhold opiates to protect patients from self-harm may be doing more harm than good; is it time to retire this outdated assumption?

Vaping is helping millions quit smoking, but concerns about teen uptake remain. A new blog explores whether the ‘gateway hypothesis’ stands up to scrutiny in the latest umbrella review of vaping harms in young people.

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Is intolerance of uncertainty in preschool children a risk factor for later anxiety?

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Do preschoolers who struggle with tolerating uncertainty get more anxious as they grow older? This longitudinal study followed preschool children across three timepoints, and found that the two are strongly related, but the rest of the picture is not as clear cut.

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