Laura Dobson

Some outstanding January reads! ☺️

SECOND PLACE in the Welkin Mini 2025. "You Say When the Rain Comes, it Will Be a Message From God" by
@cake-girl.bsky.social. Congratulations, Karen. A story full of questions, both those on the page and those that linger in the white space:

www.mattkendrick.co.uk/welkin-prize...

Picture of a sun set over sea, with words outlining that from November 16 to January 22 are the 10 darkest weeks of the year

A nice reminder for a Friday afternoon #edpsychs

UNDER A MONTH TO GO! 🤩

You have until 15 Feb to enter @natflashfictionday.bsky.social’s Micro Fiction Comp 🌟

No theme, up to 100 words, judged by @rebeccafwrites.bsky.social @uksherka.bsky.social @sudhab.bsky.social and me.

Every day, I’ll be posting a dazzler to get you inspired ✨

Thread 🧵

The Welkin Writing Prize | Shortlist 25 Shortlisted pieces for the 2025 Welkin Mini

Today's shortlisted story is "Like a memory, or maybe only a dream" by @laurabesley.bsky.social. Congratulations, Laura. A micro with such a brilliant twisting together of hope and sadness at its heart.

www.mattkendrick.co.uk/welkin-prize...

"She rubs her eyes, her long snout, and looks up at the stars and sighs as if she, too, has been awakened by the clock tick, tick, ticking."

Such rich, layered writing from @kristintenor.bsky.social - wonderful to discover this gem of a micro

Honored to have my story "Concrete Worm" in @haydensferryreview.bsky.social's new issue! And it's also available online as a preview (with gorgeous artwork) among such awe-inspiring authors! (This also alliterates!): haydensferryreview.com/noemi-scheir...
Grateful. ❤️

Which behaviour change techniques make digital interventions for eating disorders effective? - National Elf Service Rena Gatzounis summarises a review investigating the effectiveness of digital interventions for eating disorders and the behaviour change techniques that lie underneath.

Which behaviour change techniques make digital interventions for eating disorders effective? www.nationalelfservice.net?p=211552

#EatingDisorders #DigitalInterventions #BehaviourChange #BCTs #DigitalHealth #Websites #Apps #SystematicReview

the sky didn't slip inside - SmokeLong Quarterly let’s pretend the day didn’t begin with death. let’s pretend you didn’t facetime my sister from your car crying, YOU’VE LEFT ME & I’VE FALLEN THROUGH THE EARTH, & then put a plastic bag over your head...

Our featured story this week is the winner of the SmokeLong Grand Micro Contest, "the sky didn̶'t̶ slip inside" by jj peña, CNF published in the latest issue of SmokeLong Quarterly: www.smokelong.com/stories/the-... @jjpena.bsky.social

Flash Fiction: Liberations by Phebe Jewell Malia knew it was time to let the rabbit nesting in her heart go. For months the bunny had been testing the limits of her chest, pressing against her sternum.

"Malia knew it was time to let the rabbit nesting in her heart go. For months the bunny had been testing the limits of her chest, pressing against her sternum."

Today at jmww, new flash fiction from Phebe Jewell:
jmwwblog.wordpress.com/2025/01/08/f...

Active Shooter Drill - 100Words By Emily Rinkema To help them stay quiet, I teach my second graders to make lists in their heads. They tell me they list colors, their favorite foods, animals, numbers from 1-100.

"They tell me they list colors, their favorite foods, animals, numbers from 1-100. Today, we’re huddled against the word wall across from the locked door"

The emotional heft of this piece from @emilyrinkema.bsky.social is stunning. Powerful from beginning to end.

100wordstory.org/active-shoot...

Like father like offspring: paternal anxiety associated with children’s emotional and behavioural health https://buff.ly/4gr2Hpm

Zoe Firth summarises a recent systematic review, which finds that anxiety in fathers has a broadly similar impact on children, compared to maternal anxiety.

Prevention is where it's at for children and young people's mental health https://buff.ly/3ZYowa0

Beth Cumber investigates the effectiveness of preventive interventions for children and young people at-risk of developing mental health problems.

#YouthMentalHealth #Prevention #EarlyIntervention

I'm delighted to have this story up at GhostParachute today! Many people to thank: @brettpribble.bsky.social for publishing it, @kiklodge.bsky.social for her awesome prompt at @saloneurope.bsky.social's Brussels salon and @mattkendrick.bsky.social for helping polish it in his GoWithTheFlow course! 💙

Everything Everywhere All In One Place I’ve been writing these craft articles for quite a while now.

My December #WritingCraft article is a round-up of everything I've published over the last 5 years. If I've counted correctly, there are about 50 resources in total; feeling quite proud to see it all in one place. Hope it's useful!

prattlefogandgravelrap.substack.com/p/everything...

Blow By Blow

I have an intense little micro in the latest issue of the awesome @bendinggenres.bsky.social !! Thank you @rgvaughan.bsky.social for giving this piece a great home!! And a grateful shout-out to @sfreligh.bsky.social in whose wonderful workshop it was born!! bendinggenres.com/blow-by-blow/

Fifty Five Responses | MattKendrick.co.uk Fifty-five responses to an everyday question, one of which is a lie. Reflections on illness.

Every time I get asked "how are you?", I write my "real" answer on a piece of paper & stick it in a jar. Now I've brought these together in a fractured essay.

Hope it informs / comforts / reflects. Would love it if you'd give it a read.

#ChronicIllness

www.mattkendrick.co.uk/fifty-five-r...

<em>Child and Adolescent Mental Health</em> | ACAMH Journal | Wiley Online Library There is an urgent need to improve mental health outcomes among young people. One approach taken to address this problem has been the design and delivery of universal school-based prevention, based o...

Where to next for universal school-based mental health interventions?

In our @acamh.bsky.social
debate piece, @lucyfoulkes.bsky.social and I argue that it's time to move towards more effective alternatives.

acamh.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...

Estimating adolescent mental health in the general population: current challenges and opportunities Louise Black, Margarita Panayiotou, Neil Humphrey Adolescence is a period of change and increased mental health difficulties, which are important for lifetime outcomes. Adolescent mental health is therefore an active research area, with large samples often drawing on self-report general measures (ie, not disorder-specific or focused on a narrow outcome). We argue that these measures have a key role in our understanding of issues such as prevalence, antecedents, prevention, and intervention, however, measurement has been given little attention and high-quality measures do not tend to be available or used. We offer insights into historical and psychometric challenges that have contributed to current problems and highlight the implications of relying on poor measures, which at their worst can be biased and unethical. We make recommendations for research and practice on selecting measures and improving the evidence base and make a call to action to reject low-quality measurement in this field.

For anyone working in adolescent mental health: I *really* recommend reading this important paper about the most commonly used questionnaires (inc SDQ)

In short: most of them have poor psychometric properties, so do we even know what they are measuring?

www.thelancet.com/journals/lan...

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