... Girls from St Catherine lead in contacts made about ‘self-harming’, ‘mental health’
CLAUDETTE PIOUS, co-founder and executive director of Children First, who was present last week for release of data from the Office of the Children’s Advocate’s SafeSpot helpline, raised concerns about the prominence of girls in St Catherine who have been contacting the OCA for assistance.
“I feel emotional about it, because I work in St Catherine. We have done a lot of referrals to SafeSpot,” Pious said.
Following Pious’ point, Hyacinth Blair, senior director, Children Affairs and Policy Division, Ministry of Health and Wellness, asked for the specific areas in St Catherine from which youth are contacting SafeSpot.
“How do we drill down a little as to the reason behind what is happening, because we [the Ministry of Education and Youth] can provide the support at the end, in terms of the counsellors and all of that, but we want to know what is triggering [and] how do we fix it at that level so that we can reduce these incidences, so that at the policy level or at the national level what do we do?” Blair questioned.
“We have to be able to identify what the underline issues are, before we can really bring forward solutions,” she said.
Based on a review of the calls, most children made contact with SafeSpot in 2022 at the start of school weeks on a Monday through WhatsApp messages. The least contacts were made on Saturdays when it was thought that most children would have been at their houses and would be in spaces where they can reach out for help.
The hours children also reached out the most, were between 6 p.m. and 7 p.m.
SafeSpot was officially launched on May 19, 2021.
During 2022, there was a total of 2,345 calls and contacts made from the public to SafeSpot by either calling the 24/7 toll-free landline (888-723-3776) or sending messages via the online platforms (@safespotja) on WhatsApp, BiP, Instagram and Snapchat, of which 85 per cent were from children making direct reports of challenges they are facing.
The most common issue that required support from SafeSpot was categorised as ‘Mental Health’ with 56 per cent of the child callers or contacts indicating that they needed support for: suicidal thoughts and attempts ( 135 contacts), self-harming behaviours (90 contacts), fear and anxiety (111 contacts) and other unspecified mental health concerns (450 contacts).