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Disclosure of mental illness is a key ingredient in contact-based public stigma change strategies. Adults who disclose their personal recovery story experience greater empowerment and heightened quality of life. Qualitative research suggests youth may similarly benefit, but also have unique benefits and costs associated with disclosure. The purpose of this paper is to examine adults’ perceived costs and benefits of mental illness disclosure for middle and high school students with a new measure, the Coming Out with Mental Illness Scale for Children (COMIS-Child).

In total, 300 adult participants from Amazon’s MTurk completed the COMIS-Child, the Beliefs about Disclosure Scale (BDS), assessing perceptions about child disclosure, and the Attribution Questionnaire, assessing public stigma.

Principal component analyses of the COMIS-Child yielded one factor representing disclosure costs and two factors for benefits (changing pubic stigma; person-defined benefits). Internal consistencies of the COMIS-Child factors were strong. Parents with children with mental illness endorsed more costs and fewer benefits from the changing public stigma factor than other respondents. Regression analyses showed decisions about youth disclosing mental illness from the BDS were associated with perceived costs, perceived benefits as personally defined, and public stigma. Disclosure beliefs were also inversely associated with public stigma.

Adults who identify more costs and fewer benefits were less likely to believe youth should disclose, favoring a more conservative approach to youth disclosure. This highlights the importance of participating in self-stigma interventions that guide an individual’s decision making about disclosure.

To the author’s knowledge, this is the first study examining adults’ perceptions of youth disclosure of mental illness.

Disclosure seems to be a useful strategy for adults to deal with both the public and self-stigma of mental illness. However, youth may face a different set of risks when coming out with their experiences. The purpose of this paper is to examine youth, parent, and teacher perspectives on the costs and benefits of disclosure by middle- and high school-aged youth to better understand these risks.

Focus groups were conducted with questions framed to elicit the different ways mental health challenges are discussed in schools and families.

Surprisingly, the benefits of disclosure seemed to far outweigh the costs across groups. Benefits included ways to deal with stigma, reducing isolation, and “differentness,” as well as the pursuit of mental health services if needed. Costs included harsh responses to disclosure by peers and family members. Participants shared strategies used to minimize risk, including where and with whom youth might share their stories.

The results suggest many youth have disclosed their experiences with mental health challenges and have received mixed responses; these reactions often serve as the barometer for future disclosure decisions. Other youth are considering disclosure in a variety of settings, but are unsure how to go about it safely. Implications for addressing stigma are discussed.

To our knowledge, this is the first qualitative research study conducted with youth about disclosure of mental illness experiences. These results will help guide modification of programming that could be beneficial in aiding disclosure decisions and reducing disclosure-related risks for youth who come out.

The purpose of this paper is twofold: first is to examine the changing spatio-temporal patterns and regional trends in residential fires; and second is to investigate the likely association of fire risk with seasons, calendar events and socio-economic disadvantage.

Using spatial analytic and predictive techniques, 11 years of fire incident data supplied by the Queensland Fire and Emergency Services are mapped and analysed.

The results show significant spatial and temporal variability in the distribution of residential fires. Residential fire incidents are more likely to occur in the inner city and across more disadvantaged areas. Mapped outputs show some areas in Brisbane at a higher risk of fire than others and that the risk of fire escalates at specific times of the year, in neighbourhoods with a higher disadvantage, during major sporting events and school holidays. The residential fires showed strong seasonal periodicity. There is a continuous yet gradual increase in the number of fire incidents recorded for all five sub-regions within SEQ. Sunshine Coast experienced the highest upward trend whereas Toowoomba and West Moreton show the lowest increase.

This study provides an empirical basis to guide future operational strategies through targeting high fire risk areas at particular times. This, in turn, will help utilise finite resources in areas where and when they need and thus enable minimise emergency management costs.