Parents need State support to care for self-harming teens

AS Halloween approaches to herald the arrival of winter, it is reassuring to note that, although some level of the disease remains, society has finally got to grips with the pathogen that shut us down for so long.

However, it should not be forgotten that the fight against Covid-19, and the necessary restrictions imposed during this pandemic, have had a long-lasting effect on various groups of people.

This newspaper has already revealed the impact of cancer diagnoses delayed by the closure of hospitals to routine appointments during lockdowns.

This week, we highlight what experts in child psychology are telling us is likely to be another direct effect, namely a recourse to self-harm at a much younger age than we have seen before.

Children aged between 10 and 14 are self-harming at levels previously seen only in older teenagers, leading to what youth worker Trina O’Connor tells this newspaper is ‘an absolute crisis’.

In 2007, there were 185 such cases among those aged 10-14. By 2015, that number rose to 394, and in 2020 it was 615, a terrifying 232% increase on the number recorded in 2007.

This, of course, is a parenting nightmare, because it is particularly difficult to deal with mental health issues in adolescence, when the vulnerabilities have presented before the person has fully developed their personality, or learned the coping mechanisms that come with age, experience and proper intervention.

Parents struggle to get the appropriate level of service from the State, with horror stories coming back from various parts of the country about the CAMHS service provided by the HSE.

We need to invest significantly in mental health generally, and that has to start with the most vulnerable – younger citizens.

Everybody should have a right to appropriate treatment when they need it, so that their situation does not deteriorate because of a lack of resources or a lack of focus from the State authorities that are charged with this important mission. Just as we all relied on each other during the pandemic, parents need to rely on a caring State that will seek to support them in what is a challenging journey that no one would wish on any family.

The fact is that we do not have enough psychologists, and those we do have are overworked.

That this situation may have been made worse by the general requirements of a pandemic-hit society makes it all the more incumbent upon us to work to ensure that we fully erase this scar.

THEIR ONLY ‘CRIME’ WAS THEIR NATURE

IT is easy to pass judgement on the mores of a different time, when a less enlightened society believed it was appropriate to criminalise love between men.

While of course we do not agree that it was ever just or fair that simply being gay was an act of criminality, we also understand that we cannot fully undo the past.

However, Minister for Justice Helen McEntee has it in her power, now, to make amends to the estimated 1,000 men still alive who have been living with historical convictions for homosexuality.

We think it is perfectly fair for society to now stand in judgement on any failure to expedite this simple act of mercy.

We cannot retrospectively change the law, but we can expunge the punishment meted out to men whose only ‘crime’ was being themselves.