Mental health is a priority. Happiness is an essential. Self-care is a necessity
Dr Michael Carr-Gregg is one of Australia’s highest profile psychologists, author, broadcaster and specialist in parenting, children, adolescents and mental health.
Current Work:
Dr Carr-Gregg currently works in private practice in Melbourne and is the Commonwealth Government representative on the Board of the Australian Children’s Television Foundation and is the Consultant Psychologist to Australian Boarding Schools Association. In 2003 he was one of the founding members of the National Coalition Against Bullying.
Dr Carr-Gregg is the author of 17 books on adolescents, mental health and wellbeing and he is working on his 18th.
Previous Experience:
He wrote his PhD at the University of NSW on adolescents with cancer and in 1985, and founded the world’s first national teenage cancer patients support group, Canteen. He subsequently moved to NZ where he became a political lobbyist for the New Zealand Cancer Society heading up the Coalition Against Tobacco Advertising and Promotion.
Dr Carr-Gregg was the inaugural Director of the NZ Drug Foundation before being appointed Head of Education and Training at the Centre for Adolescent Health at The Royal Children's Hospital and an Associate Professor in the Department of Paediatrics at the University of Melbourne, where he developed and taught the Graduate Diploma in Adolescent Health and Welfare.
In 2015 he was appointed the Managing Director of the Young and Well Co-operative Research Centre and developed an interest in the use of technology for building wellbeing in young people.
Talking Points
The Parenting Adolescents Quiz
An entertaining and informative session, where Michael engages the participants in an informative and entertaining series of sessions on what parents need to know about the latest developments in adolescent psychology.
The Parenting Adolescents Quiz
Princess Bitchface Syndrome
What every parent needs to know about parenting teenage girls, based on Michael's bestselling book published by Penguin.
Princess Bitchface Syndrome
Real Wired Child: What Kids are Doing Online and How to Keep Them Safe
A summary of what the latest research says kids are doing online and how to keep them safe. Includes everything parents need to know about social networking sites, cyberbullying, internet addiction, filtering software and online games.
Real Wired Child: What Kids are Doing Online and How to Keep Them Safe
The Five Greatest Challenges for Parents
What every parent needs to know about millennial parenting, covering alcohol, online safety, sleep and other key issues.
The Five Greatest Challenges for Parents
Demystifying Adolescents
A crash course in the developmental psychology of adolescents - how to understand and communicate effectively with young people.
Demystifying Adolescents
Mental Health Issues for Young People
What parents need to know about depression, suicide, eating disorders, deliberate self-harm and other mental health problems in young people.
Mental Health Issues for Young People
Coping with the VCE/HSC/IB/SACE/WACE Years
A night for parents and students to prepare them for the VCE/HSC/IB years with practical tips and strategies from the applied psychological research, for both student and parents designed to reduce stress and increase productivity.
Coping with the VCE/HSC/IB/SACE/WACE Years
Coping with Alcohol, Tobacco and other Drugs
What parents need to know about contemporary adolescent drug use and their role in reducing the harms from alcohol, tobacco and other drugs. Contains the latest research and statistics on teenage drug use.
Coping with Alcohol, Tobacco and other Drugs
Mental Health Issues for Young people
What teaching staff need to know about mental health problems in schools. Including practical strategies on how to recognise depression. There is a major emphasis on the role of depression in youth suicide, eating disorders, deliberate self-harm and other mental health problems in young people. Strategies for schools to enhance the mental health of students - How schools can work together with parents and the community to develop resilience-promoting structures and process in secondary schools. A very practical session with concrete suggestions for involving staff, students and parents.
Mental Health Issues for Young people
Mental Health Issues for Staff
Never has teaching been such a stressful profession. This talk covers the major stressors, signs of burnout, stress management techniques and concrete strategies to improve individual staff member's coping strategies, including advice on how to sleep better.
Mental Health Issues for Staff
How Technology can help Student Wellbeing
The internet is entering its third reincarnation. The technology is getting speedier and cleverer and the National Broadband Network means that our young people will - whether we like it or not - be continuously connected, meaning that we will all have a 'real wired child'. The uptake of information and communication technologies (ICT) have created a new space in which young people can learn and play, be amazingly creative as well as interact with each other. The internet is unarguably the greatest communications revolution since Gutenberg invented his press in 1440. It is a story about community and collaboration on a scale never seen before. It's about the cosmic compendium of knowledge that is Wikipedia and the million-channel people's network we know as YouTube and the online metropolises of Instagram and Facebook. While the media focus has been on cyberbullying, sexting, sexually explicit material and online predators there is an upside to the technology and this presentation explores how we can use technology to promote student wellbeing in the form of smart phone apps, web-based programs and wearable devices.
How Technology can help Student Wellbeing
Coping with Alcohol, Tobacco and other Drugs
What schools need to know about contemporary adolescent drug use and their role in reducing the harms from alcohol, tobacco and other drugs. Contains the latest research and statistics on teenage drug use.
Coping with Alcohol, Tobacco and other Drugs
Hypotheticals
For conferences and training days, an entertaining and informative addition to a staff-training day or conference. An opportunity to examine some of the ethical, moral and legal dilemmas in working with young people. These can be customised to particular issues (e.g. mental health, drugs, bullying) and year level if required.
Hypotheticals
Interactive Quizzes
For conferences and training days, an entertaining and informative addition to a staff-training day or conference, where Michael engages the participants in an informative and entertaining series of sessions on what workers with young people need to know about the latest developments in adolescent psychology.
Interactive Quizzes
Screening for the Adolescent at Risk
Practical, no-nonsense strategies for welfare staff, year level co-ordinators, house masters, school chaplains and other welfare staff.
Screening for the Adolescent at Risk
Dealing with Loss and Grief in Adolescents
How to recognise and manage the young person coping with loss.
Dealing with Loss and Grief in Adolescents
Coping with the VCE/HSC/SACE/WACE/IB Years
A session for students to prepare them for the VCE/HSC/IB/WACE/SACE years with practical tips and strategies to reduce stress and increase productivity.
Coping with the VCE/HSC/SACE/WACE/IB Years
The Ten Most Important Things you Should Tell your Children to Build Resilience and Happiness
The latest news from the science of positive psychology applied to bringing up children and teenagers.
The Ten Most Important Things you Should Tell your Children to Build Resilience and Happiness
Boys Issue
Looking at the evidence which confronts us of so many young men suiciding, being suspended from school, in trouble on the streets and struggling to achieve at school, any sensible person would have to conclude that young males are in considerable difficulties. Not all young men, but sufficient young men to cause concern. The puzzle for future generations will be why it took governments so long to act. This workshop examines the nature and extent of the problem and looks at what the latest research is saying schools and parents might do to help.
Boys Issue
Keeping Your Staff Together - A corporate guide to mental health and increased productivity
According to a PWC report, mental health problems in the workplace cost Australia over $11 billion annually. This presentation focuses on prevention - offering the top ten key evidence-based strategies to maintain wellbeing which will in turn, lead to increases in productivity. Each strategy is augmented with a smartphone app, web-based program or biometric device.
Keeping Your Staff Together - A corporate guide to mental health and increased productivity
The 8 Secrets of Happiness - What every executive should know about promoting staff mental health
This presentation summarizes the last 15 years of research in positive psychology and provides participants with 8 thoughtful, practical and evidence based practical strategies to improve individual wellbeing. Offers participants a game changing paradigm that is simple and effective.
The 8 Secrets of Happiness - What every executive should know about promoting staff mental health
Work / Family Balance - how to achieve the perfect equilibrium
The latest research tells us that Australia is at its highest suicide rate in 13 years, and the largest national stress survey carried out last year reveals the highest levels of stress ever recorded. More worryingly, it seems that the steps Australians take to reduce stress are doomed to failure. So how can we get a work-life balance? This presentation outlines the latest information from the science of wellbeing to give simple practical steps which have an evidence base. So if you want help in prioritizing between "work" and "lifestyle" this is unmissable!
Work / Family Balance - how to achieve the perfect equilibrium
The Chief Nourisher in Life's Feast: Sleep - and how to get it?
The fact is that 53% of Australian adults have some kind of medical issue that impacts their sleep, with almost 2 in 10 adults reporting insomnia, chronic pain and snoring (all 16%). After a bad night’s sleep, Australian adults report they aren’t as motivated (52%), they look tired (49%), they are moody/irritable (46%), or they can’t concentrate (42%). Australia are increasingly recognising the importance of healthy sleep, and the consequences of poor sleep. This talk is a crash course in the psychology of sleep, what it is, why it is so important and how to get more of it.
The Chief Nourisher in Life's Feast: Sleep - and how to get it?
Understanding and Working with Millennials
Millennials are generally described as those born in the 1980s and 1990s, which means the oldest members of the generation-also known as Generation Y-began entering the workforce in the late 1990s and early 2000s. This talk describes how to work effectively with Millennials who have a drastically different outlook on what they expect from their employment experience.
Understanding and Working with Millennials
Raising Happy and Resilient Young People
This talk explores what the science of psychology tells us build resilience in young people and what parents can do to incorporate these evidence based strategies into their parenting practices. In addition, the positive psychology movement has given us 10 key messages that all parents can now share with their children which will greatly increase the chances of their children having higher levels of well-being.
Raising Happy and Resilient Young People
The Prince Boofhead Syndrome
While many young men play positive roles in their communities, do well at school and are a credit to their families and themselves this presentation argues that there are a small but growing proportion of boys who are characterized by arrogance, conceit, a sense of superiority, excessive need for admiration, and a lack of empathy for others. They exhibit fragile egos, an inability to tolerate criticism, and a tendency to belittle others in an attempt to validate their own superiority. This presentation talks about the origins of the syndrome and what schools and parents might do to prevent it..
The Prince Boofhead Syndrome
Dealing with Grief in Teenagers
Each year thousands of teenagers experience the death of someone they love. Dealing with Grief in Teenagers
When a parent, sibling, friend or relative dies, adolescents feel the overwhelming loss of someone who helped shape their fragile self-identities. And these feelings about the death become a part of their lives forever.
Caring adults, whether parents, teachers, counselors or friends, can help teens during this time.
If adults are open, honest and loving, experiencing the loss of someone loved can be a chance for young people to learn about both the joy and pain that comes from caring deeply for others. This talk outlines the skills, knowledge and strategies to help young people tackle the tasks of grief.
Helping Manage our Wellbeing, and that of our Family, in the Coronavirus Era
The spread of the coronavirus has turned life upside down, almost overnight for millions of Australians. Navigating a new reality of lots of family time, remote schoolwork and a ton of uncertainty about what happens next - represents a significant challenge. This 45 minute webinar (+15 minutes of questions) aims to provide participants with practical, evidence based, sills, knowledge and strategies to manage their own wellbeing during this challenging time.
Helping Manage our Wellbeing, and that of our Family, in the Coronavirus Era
Webinar: For Parents - Raising Resilient kids in the Coronavirus era
The spread of the coronavirus has turned life upside down, almost overnight, for millions of people around the world. Being a young person is complicated even without a global pandemic in the mix, and many adults are struggling to navigate the new reality of remote school work, lots of family time, and a ton of uncertainty about what happens next. This 45-minute webinar (+15 minutes of questions) is aimed at parents, grandparents and adult carers and provides practical, evidence-based strategies on what to say and what to do in these challenging times. Includes information on managing homeschooling and self-care.
Webinar: For Parents - Raising Resilient kids in the Coronavirus era
Webinar: Managing Year 11 and 12 in the Face of Uncertainty
Final year students unfortunately now face unprecedented disruption and uncertainty around the completion of their year. It may be harder to get one on one feedback from teachers in all subjects, and access to laboratories, chemicals and equipment for science students will be limited and language students may find it harder to engage in active conversation with teachers. No firm decision as to how, when or if the final exams will be held, so we all have to wait, which is particularly unsettling. This 45-minute webinar (+15 minutes of questions) is aimed at both parents of the senior student and the students themselves providing practical, tips on how both parties might manage these challenging times.
Webinar: Managing Year 11 and 12 in the Face of Uncertainty
Webinar: Helping Your Staff Manage their Wellbeing in the Coronavirus Era
Even before the coronavirus transformed the educational landscape, almost overnight, over 20% of workers suffered from a mental health problem. Uncertainty, increased family time, isolation and financial hardship may exacerbate these problems. This 45-minute webinar (+15 minutes of questions) is especially targeted at companies that are concerned about their staff and aims to provide them with the skills, knowledge and strategies to manage their own wellbeing during this challenging time.
Webinar: Helping Your Staff Manage their Wellbeing in the Coronavirus Era
The Grandparenting Book
Due to improved life expectancy, the proportion of older adults, including grandparents, has increased on a global scale. It has been estimated that of the world's 8 billion people, a record-breaking 1.5 billion, or 18 per cent, are currently grandparents. In Australia Grandparents now live 20 years longer than in 1960, families have 50% fewer children and therefore each Grandparent has fewer grandchildren to adore. How do we tread the line between spoiling them and helping them? Parents have the most powerful influence on a child but grandparents are, hands down, the second most powerful influence in a child's life and in many cases, the single most important influencer in their grandchild's life. Children benefit massively when grandparents are involved in their lives, and it is reciprocal - research shows grandparents derive significant advantages from having grandchildren in their lives. The problem is that many new grandparents feel deficient and unprepared for their role and are quite unsure how to approach it. Some feel anxious about stepping on the toes of their kids. This presentation answers the following questions:The Grandparenting Book
What are the biggest mistakes grandparents can make?
What are the myths about grandparents?
what is the great-grandparent/grandchild relationship builder?
How can we work in harmonious partnership with our children to give grandchildren what they need?
What are some of the “best practices” or grandparenting strategies and ideas that really work?
How do your grandparents build relationships when they live in a different town, state or country?
What to do when grandchildren become estranged?
What adjustments need to be made once your grandchildren become teenagers?
Are there any circumstances under which one should criticise your children’s parenting?
What are the crucial pieces of life advice you ought to pass on?
How do you manage screen use in your home with grandchildren?
Video
Michael Carr-Gregg
Dr Michael Carr-Gregg is one of Australia’s highest profile psychologists, author, broadcaster and specialist in parenting, children, adolescents and mental health. Dr Carr-Gregg currently works in private practice in Melbourne and is the Commonwealth Government representative on the Board of the Australian Children’s Television Foundation and is the Consultant Psychologist to Australian Boarding Schools Association. In 2003 he was one of the founding members of the National Coalition Against Bullying.Dr Michael Carr Gregg @SaxtonSpeakers Australia Speaks
Dr Michael Carr-Gregg is one of Australia’s highest profile psychologists. He is currently the Managing Director of the Young and Well Cooperative Research Centre, an organisation committed to exploring and understanding the role of new and emerging technologies in the lives of young people. He wrote his PhD at the University of NSW on adolescents with cancer and named and founded CanTeen over 30 years ago with a group of young cancer patients. Carr-Gregg has worked as an academic, researcher, and political lobbyist, and is the author of nine books, including the best-selling Princess Bitchface Syndrome. He also sits on the Board of Smiling Mind, as well as being a Community Ambassador for Big Brothers Big Sisters and Playgroup Victoria. He has been the Treasurer of the Australian Psychological Society Committee (Melbourne Branch) for the past five years and a member of the ePsychology special interest group for the APS. A columnist for a number of publications including Girlfriend Magazine and LightsOut, he is well known as resident parenting expert on Channel 7’s Sunrise as well as psychologist for the Morning Show with Neil Mitchell on Radio 3AW.Michael Carr-Gregg on the mental health crisis in Australia
"I don't think we're looking after our young people at all." Psychologist, author and broadcaster Michael Carr-Gregg speaks with Sabina Read about the growing mental health crisis among young people in an Up Close and Personal session on mindfulness at AIME 2017.Mental health: Australians vs. Americans
Australia's highest profile psychologist Dr Michael Carr-Gregg speaks about the difference between Australians and Americans when it comes to talking about, and seeking professional help with, mental health issues. Recorded at AIME 2017 in conversation with Sabina Read as part of Saxton's Up Close and Personal program. Dr Michael Carr-Gregg is one of Australia’s highest profile psychologists, author, broadcaster and specialist in parenting, children, adolescents and mental health.What is mindfulness, and how can young people achieve it?
Australia's highest profile psychologist Dr Michael Carr-Gregg describes mindfulness and a novel approach to achieving it. Recorded at AIME 2017 in conversation with Sabina Read as part of Saxton's Up Close and Personal program. Dr Michael Carr-Gregg is one of Australia’s highest profile psychologists, author, broadcaster and specialist in parenting, children, adolescents and mental health.What 28 minutes of daily mindfulness does to your brain
Australia's highest profile psychologist Dr Michael Carr-Gregg discusses some remarkable findings from a Harvard University study on mindfulness. Recorded at AIME 2017 in conversation with Sabina Read as part of Saxton's Up Close and Personal program. Dr Michael Carr-Gregg is one of Australia’s highest profile psychologists, author, broadcaster and specialist in parenting, children, adolescents and mental health.Michael Carr-Gregg was outstanding! Keeping the attention of 16 and 17 year old boys can be hard but he has a gift which keeps them spellbound. He entertains and informs adults and teens ali ... keep reading Wesley College
The response to the presentations was overwhelming. Almost every staff member said to me that it was the best professional development they had ever attended. This included staff members that have been teaching for 20 years or more. The staff has also already been asking for Michael to come back next year. I can honestly say that Brisbane State High School has been influenced by Michael and now is a better and more educated place because of your time and expertise.
Michael Carr-Gregg speaks to a subject that affects all parents sooner or later - adolescence. He is obviously well experienced and knowledgeable in the subject, but more than that he brings the subject alive and makes it a memorable event. An essential experience for any parent entering the dark-tunnel of parenting adolescent children.
Michael Carr-Gregg has a balanced approach to delivering his seminars that fully engages his audience. He has a sense of humour, along with some powerful messages. He presented to the same group all day and never lost his audience. In fact, they wished he was about for another day. My parent meeting was also held in high regard and again parents wished they would have had the whole day with him.
Michael was humorous, inspirational and relevant to every teacher at the conference. He gave an entertaining seminar which made us laugh, cry and see the relevance and importance of being great teachers to our students. Michael was happy to chat informally with individuals at the break times and everyone came away extremely positive and prepared to face the demands of their job. Michael was able to connect with the audience so well, I felt that I'd known him for years. He is such a talent.
Michael is a dynamic, engaging speaker and he presents up to date and precise information that supports our students through their difficult final year of school.
Dr MIchael Carr-Gregg was very engaging and informative!!
It was an absolute delight to have Michael speak with staff and then parents. He had listened to our briefing so well and was able to land the messages we had hoped he would. Even some of the more sceptical staff were completely won over by his humility, knowledge, humour and compelling stories. We could have listened to him for hours! Already people are asking for him to come back and speak with our students.
