RAD­HI­CA DE SIL­VA

Se­nior Mul­ti­me­dia Re­porter

rad­hi­ca.sookraj@guardian.co.tt 

Sev­er­al child sui­cides in re­cent months have trig­gered calls for more re­sources and sup­port for child men­tal health in T&T.

This week alone, at least two teenage sui­cides were re­port­ed in south and north Trinidad, and on Tues­day, a Form Five stu­dent at a South school at­tempt­ed to jump off a build­ing in yet an­oth­er sus­pect­ed sui­cide at­tempt.

Speak­ing to Guardian Me­dia, the chair­per­son of Life­line, Lucy Gabriel, called for greater in­vest­ment in men­tal health ser­vices. She en­cour­aged peo­ple to take ac­tion if they ob­serve signs of dis­tress in chil­dren.

Life­line, she said, re­ceived be­tween 15 to 85 calls per day, but less than ten per cent of these were from peo­ple un­der the age of 18.

Al­though Life­line pro­vides a 24-hour toll-free helpline at 800-5588 for in­di­vid­u­als in cri­sis, Gabriel said a lack of re­sources had pre­vent­ed them from reach­ing chil­dren in schools.

Say­ing Life­line col­lab­o­rat­ed with schools and com­mu­ni­ty or­gan­i­sa­tions to raise aware­ness about sui­cide pre­ven­tion and men­tal health, Gabriel said they hoped to ex­pand its ser­vices for chil­dren and teens through its Stu­dent Out­reach Pro­gramme (STOP), which was launched in 1993.

“We meet stu­dents where they are, in schools, com­mu­ni­ties, and YTC (Youth Train­ing Cen­tre). Fund­ing is the is­sue,” Gabriel ex­plained.

She en­cour­aged the pub­lic to be vig­i­lant and proac­tive.

“If you sus­pect a child you know may be con­sid­er­ing sui­cide, call Life­line at 800-5588,” she said.

Mean­while, psy­chi­a­trist and in­de­pen­dent sen­a­tor Dr Var­ma Deyals­ingh said an in­ter­ven­tion was need­ed in schools.

“I plead with the Min­is­ter of Ed­u­ca­tion to start men­tal health class­es like phys­i­cal ed­u­ca­tion class­es,” he added, not­ing, “Emo­tion­al in­tel­li­gence was a key com­po­nent of men­tal well­ness.”

While schools have stu­dent sup­port ser­vices to as­sess so­cial dis­tress at home or emo­tion­al and de­vel­op­men­tal prob­lems, Deyals­ingh said this large­ly de­pend­ed on school re­fer­rals.

He em­pha­sised that sui­cide was the fourth lead­ing cause of death among 15- to 29-year-olds glob­al­ly and called for ur­gent pub­lic ed­u­ca­tion about the men­tal health cri­sis af­fect­ing the na­tion’s youth.

“Though we have all these ser­vices, we need more staff at every sin­gle in­sti­tu­tion, and we need to de­crease wait­ing time for chil­dren to be as­sessed. We need fol­low-up home vis­its; more so­cial work­ers, guid­ance coun­sel­lors, men­tal health of­fi­cers, psy­chol­o­gists and psy­chi­a­trists are des­per­ate­ly need­ed to deal with this in­creas­ing men­tal health cri­sis,” Deyals­ingh said.

He added, “Par­ents need to be ed­u­cat­ed about this is­sue. Chil­dren must learn to ex­press their emo­tions with­out stig­ma, and hot­line num­bers like 800-COPE should be promi­nent­ly dis­played on bill­boards.”

He called for a col­lab­o­ra­tive ap­proach to deal­ing with the is­sue.

“We need pe­ri­od­ic de­pres­sion and men­tal health screen­ing in schools; peer men­tal health trainees; quick­er re­fer­rals to stu­dent sup­port ser­vices; and an anony­mous bul­ly­ing hot­line,” he said.

He not­ed that the ed­u­ca­tion sys­tem should not fur­ther trau­ma­tise chil­dren by rush­ing them through ex­ams, es­pe­cial­ly if they come from tox­ic home en­vi­ron­ments.

“Chil­dren should progress when they are ready, with­out feel­ing in­fe­ri­or,” he said.

Mean­while, a guid­ance coun­sel­lor who re­quest­ed anonymi­ty said the re­fer­ral forms for Stu­dent Sup­port Ser­vices were te­dious to fill out, and of­ten­times, teach­ers re­frained from do­ing re­fer­rals be­cause of the ex­or­bi­tant pa­per­work.

Even though ado­les­cent clin­ics, child guid­ance clin­ics for psy­chi­atric care and med­ica­tion, and child psy­chi­a­try spaces at the St Ann’s Hos­pi­tal are avail­able, many chil­dren are re­luc­tant to seek help be­cause of the stig­ma.

Mean­while, Ed­u­ca­tion Min­is­ter Dr Nyan Gads­by-Dol­ly re­vealed there has been in­creased fund­ing for Stu­dent Sup­port Ser­vices since 2022 to en­hance men­tal health sup­port for stu­dents.

“We hired ad­di­tion­al school so­cial work­ers, guid­ance coun­sel­lors, and restora­tive prac­ti­tion­ers and cre­at­ed 18 Stu­dent Sup­port Ser­vices Spaces at Schools of Fo­cus to en­hance ser­vice de­liv­ery, di­rect­ly im­pact­ing the men­tal health of our stu­dents,” she said.

Pre­ven­ta­tive ini­tia­tives in­clude a Guid­ance Cur­ricu­lum ad­dress­ing top­ics like friend­ship, self-es­teem, and peer re­la­tions, she added.

Say­ing teacher ed­u­ca­tion is a pri­or­i­ty, the min­is­ter ex­plained, “The Di­ag­nos­tic and As­sess­ment In­ter­ven­tion Unit (DAIU) has been en­gag­ing in teacher ed­u­ca­tion ses­sions on de­pres­sion, self-harm, sui­ci­dal­i­ty, stress, anx­i­ety, self-care, and cop­ing. Teacher in­for­ma­tion ses­sions are al­so con­duct­ed by so­cial work­ers on recog­nis­ing signs of self-harm­ing in stu­dents.”

She not­ed that the min­istry col­lab­o­rat­ed with or­gan­i­sa­tions such as the Min­istry of Health, Child Guid­ance Unit, Chil­dren’s Au­thor­i­ty, Fam­i­ly Court, and UWI So­cial and Be­hav­iour­al De­part­ment.