R U OK day is an event that doubles as an opportunity to check in with yourself and your loved ones to begin a conversation about mental health. The R U OK charity reminds everyone that any day is a good day to ask “Are you OK?”

Healthy Trajectories is thoroughly invested in the study of maintaining and uplifting the mental health of everyone, especially people with disability. In commemoration of the event, here are some core projects of Healthy Trajectories that are associated with Mental Health research.

Participation and Mental Health

Mental health problems and participation restrictions are reported for children with disabilities relatively often.

Professor Mats Granlund of the CHILD research group in Sweden is leading a longitudinal study about how mental health develops over time, and on how the active participation of children and parent/carers in the rehabilitation process can be increased. Healthy Trajectories’ Christine Imms is a collaborator on this project.

Measuring Mental Health in young people with developmental disabilities

Our knowledge about the mental health problems of children with developmental disabilities is largely based on parental report. There is a significant lack of child self-report. Although parents know a lot about their children, they do not know everything.

This is a PhD project of Magnus Ivarsson from Linköping University, and it’s a study that will analyse the results of many other studies measuring the efficacy of mental health reporting in children with developmental disabilities.

Wellbeing and Mental Health in those with Complex Communication Needs

Young people with disability and complex communication needs (CCN) face barriers addressing their mental health concerns, which may be due to a lack of assessment tools for this population.

This is another PhD project, this time featuring three studies to assist with the development of better tools for mental health assessment of people with CCN. These studies examine the tools currently available for wellbeing, anxiety and depression, the current and future needs of professionals involved in assessing mental health, and the mental health experiences of, people with CCN.