Marie Yap

Current Projects
1. Parenting Strategies: Preventing Adolescent Alcohol Misuse, Depression and Anxiety
The www.parentingstrategies.net website currently consists of 2 linked sites:
1.1. www.parentingstrategies.net/alcohol/ provides parenting guidelines for adolescent alcohol use, as well as an interactive, web-based parenting program that tailors the guidelines recommendations for individual parents' needs and supports parents in their attempts to implement these recommendations. Pilot data demonstrates that parents find the program useful, reporting that they have made significant changes in their parenting after accessing the program.
1.2. www.parentingstrategies.net/depression/ provides parenting guidelines to prevent depression and anxiety disorders in their (1) teenagers and (2) primary school-aged children. Personalised online parenting programs have been developed to support parents in implementing these guidelines. We are currently evaluating the effects of these online programs in 3 pilot randomised controlled trials.

2. Training Parents of Teenagers study
This is a longitudinal randomised controlled trial to examine the effects of training parents in mental health first aid (MHFA) on teenagers' mental health in the long term. MHFA involves providing help to a person developing a mental health problem or in a mental health crisis, until appropriate professional treatment is received or until the crisis resolves. We would like to find out whether adolescents whose parents have been trained in MHFA will have better mental health outcomes, feel better supported by their parents, and be more likely to seek appropriate help if they develop mental health problems.

3. Tuning into Teens study
This is a cluster randomised controlled trial to evaluate a new parenting program, Tuning in to Teens (TINT), as an intervention to prevent adolescent mental health problems. Secondary schools will be randomised into intervention or 1-year waitlist, and Year 7 students and their parents will be recruited to the trial. This study will provide evidence about whether a parenting intervention targeting parent emotion socialization is effective in improving parenting skills, increasing youth and parent emotional competence, reducing youth internalising and externalising behaviour problems, and preventing the onset of mental illness in adolescents.