Mental health experts are describing it as "a silent pandemic of psychological distress."

Last month Koi Tu, a think tank and research centre at the University of Auckland, published a commentary Youth Mental Health in Aotearoa New Zealand: Greater Urgency Required.

Sir Peter Gluckman, Director of Koi Tu, says it's unacceptable that close to a quarter of New Zealand's youth surveyed are reportedly mentally unwell and that the issue hasn't received the attention and action it deserves.

"We're not talking necessarily here about classic psychiatric illness, of depression, or severe anxiety," says Gluckman.

"We're talking about emotional disturbances sufficient to interfere with a young person optimally developing through life with long term consequences to employment, to learning, to relationship building ... to being satisfied with their lives."

Key insights

• There is a silent pandemic of mental morbidity amongst the global youth population which will have adverse life-course consequences
• The last decade has seen a rapid and concerning rise in youth psychological distress and suicide rates
• Nationally, poor mental health for youth is persistently inequitable and worsening
• Impacts of COVID-19 on youth mental health is likely to be extensive and enduring
• Protection and promotion of mental wellbeing for youth is now a matter of urgency.

The commentary follows the release of the preliminary findings of the Youth19 survey of 7,721 school students aged 13-19 years.

It found that 23% (29% of females and 17% of males) reporting symptoms of depression.

This is approximately twice the rate in 2012 (17% and 9% respectively).

Political parties are putting the issue of mental health strongly in focus.

But experts say a wave of anxiety and mental distress is on the way.

The services that are needed aren't arriving fast enough.

Journalist Laura Walters has been looking into mental health in a series of articles for Newsroom.co.nz.

She told The Detail about the billions being allocated and good intentions that can't be enacted because the personnel aren't in place. But the political will for change is there.

Source

• informedfutures.org
• newsroom.co.nz
• stuff.co.nz
• scoop.co.nz
• Image: Lynn Grieveson

He is no stranger to getting stuck in to achieve his goals.

Dallas is on the Student Youth Council and over the past few years has balanced Merit-Excellence in NCEA and run fundraisers and awareness campaigns for the Mayoral Election, 40-Hour Famine, Caritas, St Vincent De Paul, and Life Matters.

Now he says he is taking on his most challenging event yet. He is organising a march from Civic Square in Wellington to Parliament all in the name of student mental health.

He says the issue is not getting the focus it should and he has organised a march to parliament to get the politicians to take notice.

Students at Onslow College are also part of a group of thirteen colleges in the Wellington region to be helping with organising the march.

It will take place on Wednesday the 9th of September starting at Civic Square at midday.

"There was a guideline for mentally healthy schools that was brought up in 2001 which was sent to parliament and it has got lost and has never been revisited, and most schools are too scared to talk about the issue of mental health and suicide," Dallas says.

"We are asking politicians to stop being lazy and revisit the 2001 Guidelines for Mentally Healthy Schools, and while doing this we will be working with Lesley Frederikson from the NZ Association of Optometrists and including eye tests within our guidelines for good reason," he says.

"They talk about what's the biggest issue facing the next generation, and they talk about climate, but youth suicide is just lingering in the background," he says.

Source

issuu.com

After all, our parents are the most important people in our lives. We see them at close range more than we see anybody else.

They are the people who made us, who care for us most, who act as primary role models for us, who spend most time with us, and who we want most to love us.

So it makes sense that if they treat each other well and show us - their children - love and safe boundaries, then the odds are that most of us will turn out fine.

If they fall short on any of these areas - they show contempt for one another, they fight or blank each other, they can't make their relationship work so they split up, or they can't show us the love and safe boundaries we need - then it makes sense that the odds start building up against us.

How we see the world is bound to be framed first and foremost by what we experience at home.

And yet the prevailing view in government circles is that whether the parents are married or not, or stay together or not, isn't important.

What's most important, apparently, is whether they fight.

Parental conflict is certainly unpleasant and well known to have unpleasant consequences for children.

Yet our previous research has shown that only 2 per cent of parents quarrel a lot and only 9 per cent of parents who divorce quarreled a lot before they split up.

These numbers alone suggest that parental conflict is an insufficient explanation for the prevalence of teenage problems. In any case, children are often better off out of a high conflict relationship. Continue reading

Sources

• MercatorNet article by Harry Benson, Research Director of the UK-based Marriage Foundation.
• Image: Daily Mail Australia