Parents to get suicide awareness session to save stressed children

IN TWO weeks, the National Parenting Support Commission (NPSC), in partnership with Choose Life International, will commence its annual sessions to educate parents on the warning signs of suicide in children.

Following the two suspected cases of suicide in the last month and an attempted case of suicide from another child over the weekend, NPSC CEO Kaysia Kerr said the organisation is stressing the need for intervention.

“We are looking very carefully now because we are in strange times and our children do feel a little isolated sometimes because of the new challenges that COVID19 presents, so we have to make sure we are paying attention,”she said.

This year, the sessions will run in tandem with the 36 helplines launched by the NPSC in April to provide support to parents experiencing difficulty coping amid the pandemic and online schooling. The initiative is a collaboration with the United Nations Children’s Fund, Victoria Mutual Foundation and Fight for Peace.

The NPSC, an agency of the Ministry of Education, Youth and Information, is concerned that the frustration displayed by parents in several videos circulating on social media might lead to child abuse.

Kerr is calling on frustrated parents to call the helplines for psychosocial support to prevent further trauma until more intensive support can be garnered. She said that all suicide-related matters are immediately dealt with by her.

The NPSC has been conducting numerous sessions across their social media platforms for parental education on how to navigate this space and have provided bulletins to the regions to connect with smaller groups that do not have access to the Internet and platforms.

“Let us see how we can come up with solutions because we do not want any child being unable to access education,”Kerr appealed to parents.

Since the implementation of the helplines, the commission has received 534 calls from parents islandwide.