If you are interested in accessing the program and participating in the research, make sure to fill out the Expression of Interest form in case you are eligible.

If you are not eligible for the research trial (confirmed by the Expression of Interest form or phone call with the research team), unfortunately the PiP-Ed+ program is not available outside of this trial.

However, you may be interested in accessing the PiP program via headspace. The program accessible via headspace is designed for parents or carers of young people (aged around 12 to 18 or secondary-school age) who are interested in learning more about how they can support their teenager's mental health. This is not a strict age limit, and any carer will be able to access the program via their headspace account. However, it's important to note that this version of PiP does not include the extra content about supporting teenagers experiencing difficulty attending school due to emotional distress, like the PiP-Ed+ program. It also does not include the coaching sessions with a PiP coach, instead, the modules are available to work through at your own pace.

The PiP program via headspace is suitable for both prevention (i.e. the teen is not currently experiencing a mental health problem) or as an adjunct to treatment of a teenager's mental health problems like depression and anxiety (i.e. a resource for parents while the teen is also receiving support). Although the program has a focus on supporting mental health, a lot of the content covers more general parenting challenges that most parents of teenagers will encounter, for example communication, managing strong emotions, boundaries, conflict, and staying involved in the teen's life while supporting their growing independence.

The PiP-Ed+ program is being offered as part of a research trial. To understand how effective the program is, we will compare parents who start the program straight away with parents who begin after a waiting period. If you are eligible to take part, you will first complete some online surveys. You will then be randomly allocated to start the program either immediately or after a 7 month waiting period. The research team doesn't control who gets allocated to start immediately or after the waiting period, this is done randomly by the website.

This is an important part of the research, and will help us to support as many families as possible.

Absolutely not! There are many factors that contribute to a young person's risk of mental health problems and experiencing difficulties attending school. Many of these factors are outside of our control, for example our genetics, biological sex, family history, personality, early life events, and many others. On top of these factors, there are some things that parents and families can do that either increase or decrease their young person's risk of mental health problems. For this reason, parents are a great resource for young people—whether that be to reduce their risk of future mental health problems, or to support those who are already struggling. Rather than causing mental health problems, parents can help to build their teenager's resilience against these problems. PiP-Ed+ is designed to help parents do this.

Each module covers a specific topic related to parenting teenagers and supporting their mental health and school attendance. Modules include educational information, interactive activities, reflection questions, videos, quizzes, and a goal-setting exercise at the end of each module to help you put what you've learned into practice.

No, you can work through as many of the modules as you want, depending on the modules you select at the beginning of the program. Modules unlock weekly, but you can choose to unlock them sooner if you wish. If you don't have time to complete a module, the program will save your progress so that you can return to it later.

There are many factors that contribute to a young person's risk of mental health problems and/or challenges attending school, and parenting is only one of them. Many factors, such as genetics, or previous life experiences, are outside of our control. However, there are also many things that adult carers can do to decrease their young person's risk of mental health problems, and PiP-Ed+ is designed to help parents learn and use these protective parenting strategies. Therefore, while doing this program cannot guarantee your young person's mental health will improve, by applying what you learn in the program, you can increase the likelihood that their mental health will improve, and reduce their risk of developing further mental health problems in future.

Yes, you can tell your young person that you're doing the PiP-Ed+ program or you can keep it private, it is up to you and what you think is best for your situation. We encourage you to tell them about it, and if you both agree to it, encourage them to also participate (see the Explanatory Statement).

You may wish to tell your young person that you are doing a parenting program to learn skills and strategies to support their mental health and school engagement. When having this conversation, it may be helpful to show them some of the online content, so they have a better understanding of the topics covered by the program. Additionally, you might like to tell them that the program was developed with input from many Australian teenagers, and that any information you provide about your family as part of this program will be kept confidential.

PiP-Ed+ is designed to improve your confidence to support your young person. Improvements in your parenting confidence can take time and will depend on your unique family situation, and so there is no single answer to this question. However, research has shown that parents who complete more of the modules and apply the strategies regularly, are more likely to see greater improvements in their parenting confidence. For example, choosing a goal from each module, and working on it during the week before your next module can increase the effectiveness of the program, so we recommend always trying to complete the goal setting activities at the end of each module.

If you and your young person are happy to share this information, there is no reason why you shouldn't tell their clinician you are doing the PiP-Ed+ program. Doing so may also help you to all be 'on the same page' when it comes to your approach to supporting your young person with their mental health and school engagement.

You are welcome to spread the word about this research trial with other parents of teenagers who may be interested and eligible to also participate. However, other primary carers of your teen (i.e., the teen you are concerned about when completing the program) are not able to sign up to this research trial. If you wish, they can complete the modules with you, or access the modules in your account. They are also welcome to join the coaching sessions with you.

Although there has been representation of First Nations, multicultural communities across various design, development, piloting, and evaluation projects for PiP over the past 9-10 years, people from First Nations and multicultural communities have been underrepresented in evaluations of PiP to date (approximately 5-15%). This means that we do not yet know how effective the program would be specifically for families from these communities. The individual modules are based on widely accepted and evidence-based parenting strategies that support wellbeing in teenagers. Further consideration of parenting approaches in diverse communities, for example featuring collectivist approaches to parenting, are likely future enhancements to the program.

Providing the program to families of various cultural backgrounds is a priority for Monash University. We are exploring the acceptability and outcomes of the program for these families by inviting parents from all Australian communities to take part in the program and evaluation. This will be really helpful in informing any future changes to the program content and/or the way it is made available. No harmful impacts of participating in the program have been identified. The modules are based on widely accepted and evidence-based parenting strategies that support wellbeing in young people. We are encouraging parents from all communities to read the information about PiP and the research project, and participate if they choose.

We are actively seeking to find out whether this program benefits people from diverse communities, and how the program can be improved in the future. We are currently undertaking projects to adapt PiP for families in various communities and countries.

If you are in an emergency situation or need immediate assistance, contact mental health services or emergency services on 000. If you need to speak to someone urgently at any time, call Lifeline 13 11 14 or Suicide Call Back Service 1300 659 467.

If you need other support, check out our Useful Resources page.

To create an account on the PiP-Ed+ website, you must first have a phone call with the research team to confirm you are eligible to participate in the research trial. You will not be able to make an account on the website until you receive a unique invitation link from the research team.

If you have had a phone call with the research team and received your registration link with a temporary password, and the password is no longer working, please contact the research team at pip-ed@monash.edu.

Modules will be marked as "complete" when all pages have been viewed and activities have been completed. If you think you've completed a module but it is not showing as complete, have a look to see if there are any pages or activities you have missed.

You can see this by opening the navigation bar on the left and looking for the green ticks. Pages that are complete will have a green tick, whereas pages that are incomplete or partially complete will be grey. Click on any pages with grey ticks to return to them and complete the activities.

If you are using a phone or device with a smaller screen, you may need to click the three lines in the top left corner to view the navigation bar.

Modules you've selected will unlock weekly, but if there are any modules you are interested in completing, you can unlock it by pressing the padlock option on the top right of the module tile.

If you would like to turn off SMS reminders, go to Settings and scroll to 'Manage Notifications'. You can then select your subscription preferences.

Some of the study surveys involve more questions than others, and some include questions about your teenager's school attendance. You may need to upload screenshots of your school parent portal for some of the surveys, which some parents may not have done before.

If you are having difficulty completing the surveys, please contact the research team at pip-ed@monash.edu or call (03) 9905 1250. The research team will be happy to talk you through the surveys on the phone, or set up a time to connect via videoconferencing to help you do this.