Coping

“Be creative … and find what works for you to feel better or
more you.”

“I pick a piece of lavender on my walk to school every
morning to help anxiety and to stay calm. Since they took my music away, this
is very helpful.”

“Everyone has negative emotions and everyone needs to find a
way to alleviate it or manage them to feel more positive in general.”

“We can raise awareness which will lead to education for
more people to understand what others or themselves might be going through.”

Photographer: Leila McMillanThis
photograph featured in the Youth Booth
exhibition showcasing the work of 10 Victorian young people produced over the
2019-2020 Australian summer. Their work captures their collective experience:
being digitally savvy, the stress of study, influence of social media, climate
change and the impact of poor mental health. These perspectives, along with our
video series produced alongside this, allow us to see the complex situations
that impact the youth experience of education.

For
schools, teachers, parents and policy-makers it highlights the importance of
listening and collaboration with young people, particularly when developing
policies and implementing practice to build more inclusive communities. For
researchers, we hope this exhibition highlights one way to use participatory
visual research methods to support and strengthen the voice of youth.

The
exhibition adopts a rights-based perspective which emphasises the importance
not only of listening to youth, but actively and authentically collaborating on
matters that directly affect them.

The
study was conducted by researchers Dr Christine Grove and Louisa Trainer in
2019-2020 at Monash University and is funded by the Monash Education Small
Grant Award.