In a bid to address the alarming rates of suicide among Native American youth, two tribal nations have taken legal action against major social media companies. The lawsuit, filed in Los Angeles county court, targets Meta Platforms (the parent company of Facebook and Instagram), Snap Inc. (owner of Snapchat), ByteDance (parent company of TikTok), and Read more
Mental health advocate Mike King is all for getting rid of the Suicide Prevention Office after an announcement that a number of staff would be cut as part of the Ministry of Health’s cost-cutting proposal. Speaking to TVNZ’s Sunday, King, known for his endeavours in the mental health area including the I Am Hope charity, Read more
I stood alone in a cemetery, staring at a teenager’s grave. The headstone was covered in baseball caps and necklaces – colourful tributes to a life cut short. I’d travelled to Kawerau, a former milling town on the East Coast, to report on a spate of youth suicides that had rocked the town. Back then, Read more
North Korean leader Kim Jong Un has ordered local authorities to take suicide prevention measures after various media reports revealed families committed suicide due to hunger and poverty. Kim officially defined suicide as an “act of treason against socialism” and issued a confidential suicide prevention order during emergency meetings of the party leaders all over Read more
A tearful Mike King broke down on the radio discussing New Zealand’s latest suicide rate. The system is broken and needs to be fixed urgently, he says. Although New Zealand’s suicide rate has dropped for the third year, Māori continue to be disproportionately affected, statistics show. The deputy-chief coroner released the figures to June 30, Read more
The first thing I remember being taught about suicide is that it is selfish. And so in my middling Protestant childhood, while I did not worry about the eternal destiny of people who killed themselves, I did believe suicide was principally a moral failing. In Catholicism, the situation was more complex. Suicide was thought to Read more
Raging suicide statistics have led an American Catholic diocese to create a mental health ministry. The US Centres for Disease Control and Prevention reports over twice as many people died in 2020 by their own hand rather than someone else’s. Once considered a mortal sin, suicide is viewed much more moderately today. By bringing suicide Read more
A man and his dog are about to set off on the adventure of a lifetime, making plenty of memories and hopefully raising plenty of money for mental health too. Gary Anderson, from Kaponga, will travel across the North Island by motorbike with his 11-year-old blue merle border collie Kairo in the sidecar seat of Read more
New Zealand mental health advocate, television personality and former comedian Mike King has some straight words for Kiwis about mental health. If we want to prevent suicide and help our kids open up about mental health, there are a couple of things we need to get on to. We need to do more to make Read more
A Catholic university’s suicide intervention programme is doing well. The Collaborative Assessment and Management of Suicidality (CAMS) offers a therapeutic framework for treating suicidal patients. The professor leading the work, David Jobes, says a recent meta-analysis of clinical trials the programme is “Well Supported for reducing suicidal ideation [suicidal thoughts] per Centers for Disease Control Read more