This webinar presented by Be You discusses practical strategies for supporting the whole school community (students, educators and families) through the primary to secondary school transition phase. The panelists are CATS' own Dr Lisa Mundy, Jodie Scanlon (a primary school educator and a Be You Educational Consultant) and Mary Coupland (community liaison officer and school administration officer at Arthur Phillip High School). Transcripts and additional resources are available on the Be You website
Be You is led by Beyond Blue with delivery partners Early Childhood Australia and headspace. Both partners have local teams of trained consultants to provide advice and support to early learning services and schools nationally to help implement a whole-learning community approach growing Australia’s most mentally healthy generation.
Want to know what CATS is all about? In the video above, our special reporter Katy Rummage visits the Murdoch Children's Research Institute at The Royal Children's Hospital to find out the truth about CATS.
In the video above, we will show you how to do the DIY (do-it-yourself) measurements at home. We also have a written version of the instructions. If you have any questions, please feel free to call us on (03) 9345 6732 or email us at cats@mcri.edu.au.
We know that families and students can sometimes experience difficulty in their lives. We have included some helpful support services if you would like some additional support or information.
Read our new policy brief Promoting wellbeing and learning in the middle years: an opportune time for intervention, developed by The Childhood to Adolescence Transition Study (CATS) team at the Centre for Adolescent Health, Murdoch Children’s Research Institute.
This policy brief highlights how the middle years (8 to 14 years) are a significant developmental phase which can impact a child’s future health and learning outcomes. It provides recommendations for policy makers, schools and educators to promote wellbeing and school engagement during these years.
This podcast series by Murdoch Children’s Research Institute, discusses the challenges parents are facing, and explores how parents can best support themselves and their children. Professor George Patton and Dr Lisa Mundy provide tips on positive change, creating new routines and dealing with disruption in school. Listen on:
Spotify - Apple Podcasts - MCRI Website
Understanding the Middle Years Podcast
In this podcast for the Student Wellbeing Hub, Professor George Patton of CATS discusses the importance of the the middle years for health and emotional development. Click here to listen.
Dunn, A. (2017) The New Puberty. Melbourne University Press. Melbourne, Australia.
'The New Puberty' explores the big challenges and complex questions for school-aged children growing up in today's world. Amanda Dunn uses evidence-based research and input from the experts to lend a helping hand to young people and their parents, during this complicated stage of life.
Fact Sheet: Transitioning from childhood to adolescence
The CATS study, in conjunction with the Response Ability initiative, have produced a fact sheet about supporting students in the transition between childhood and adolescence.
The Student Wellbeing Hub
The Student Wellbeing Hub is a comprehensive online resource compiled by the Department of Education with the help of academics and experts, for the use of parents, teachers and students across Australia.
In Grades 3, 5 and 6 we collected a small sample of saliva from CATS participants. This allows us to see if the hormonal changes of puberty have begun. These hormones involved in puberty are present in all children of late primary-school age and upwards. We will collect a saliva sample again in 2020.
If you would like to know more about this process please contact the CATS team.
iCATS is an extension of CATS. The iCATS team are investigating the relationships between health and puberty by looking at brain development. iCATS collects information and takes images of the brain from 120 students who take part.
If you’d like any further information you can get in touch with the iCATS team:
SMS - 0405 581 085 | Phone - (03) 8344 1845 or 0405 581 085 | Email - i-cats@unimelb.edu.au
We would love for you to stay involved in CATS. Our participants have all kinds of living arrangements. We are happy to work with you to find the best way for you to take part. For example, we can email you an online link, send your questionnaire to another address, or send it through your school, workplace or training provider.
Please email us at cats@mcri.edu.au or give us a call on 9345 6732.
If you're stuck on the password page, the password to all questionnaires is CATS. This is not case sensitive.
For help with the CATS Young Person Questionnaire, please see the following help sheets:
CATS Young Person Questionnaire Part 1
CATS Young Person Questionnaire Part 2
If this doesn't answer your question, feel free to call us on (03) 9345 6732 or email us at cats@mcri.edu.au.
Yes! CATS takes on students from several different courses, although places are limited. If you're interested in a studentship, please get in touch with Dr Lisa Mundy lisa.mundy@mcri.edu.au.
You can reach the team Monday to Friday 9am-5pm. Call, text or email us!
If we don’t pick up, leave a message and we’ll get right back to you.
The CATS team are currently working from home due to COVID-19. You can still reach us in the same hours as above by phone, text or email. We are not able to receive postal mail during this time.
Yes! CATS is interested in the development of all young people, regardless of what career or pathway you choose.
If you are a researcher and interested to collaborate with the CATS team please get in touch with Dr Lisa Mundy.
If you have recently moved or have changed your contact details, please let us know by either calling (03) 9345 6732, sending an email to cats@mcri.edu.au, or you can click here to update your details online.
Yes, CATS has ethics approval from the Royal Children’s Hospital Human Research Ethics Committee. If you have any concerns and/or complaints about the project, the way it is being conducted or your rights as a research participant, and would like to speak to someone independent of the project, please contact: Director, Research Ethics & Governance, The Royal Children’s Hospital Melbourne on (03) 9345 5044.
Yes. All of the data we collect from you are saved with an ID number, not your name. Only our research team have access to it, and when we use it we only see your ID number so can't tell who it came from. We present all of our findings in a way that no individual person or school can be identified.
