THE S WORD
What’s going on at school
It was in early June 2012, as New Zealand was edging into another winter, that teacher Tracey Lawson stood in front of her class and defied official policy by choosing to tell the truth.
With 20 careworn teenage faces turned towards her, Lawson did the unthinkable. She talked about suicide.
Two students from her class, Colin Taipari-Herewini and Mia Dunn, both 14, had killed themselves weeks earlier. Everyone knew Colin and Mia had died by suicide and their classmates wanted to know why. They asked Lawson if they should have seen the signs; if they were to blame.
“They just had so many questions,” Lawson said. But like all other teachers at Kamo High School — and any school that experiences a student suicide in New Zealand — Lawson was gagged from talking about suicide by a long-standing law.
Schools are bound by legislation that states a self-inflicted death can be called a suicide only if a coroner rules it is, even though it takes on average a year for a coronial finding to be completed.
In the wake of a student suicide, the Ministry of Education trauma team descends on a school and writes a script for principals and teachers to read to students. The script does not mention suicide or discuss why it happens or how to prevent it.
Silence on suicide has been orthodox in New Zealand since the mid-1990s when a national panic over the increasing rate of teen suicide led to officials shutting down public conversations on the issue through fears it could cause more deaths.
“It’s ministry policy to say sudden death, never suicide,” said Ministry of Education psychologist Roger Phillipson, a former long-term ministry trauma team leader. “Even if students ask questions, we would advise teachers that they stick to the script.”
New Zealand has the worst suicide rate among those aged 15-19 in the developed world, and it’s shown no sign of abating over the past 20 years. A new survey of 8500 high school students by the University of Auckland found one in 20 had attempted suicide in the past year. For the past six months, the New
has investigated youth suicide for a special series called Break the Silence.
Schools are often left to support grieving students in the aftermath of a suicide and the canvassed our 507 high schools to understand how suicide is being handled behind the gates.
We found this is an issue of epidemic proportions, with schools dealing with suicidal ideation and self-harm on a daily basis. Students have been discovered unconscious on school grounds after attempts to end their life and they’ve sent suicide notes to teachers.
In some schools, suicide is known simply as “the s word”.
The Government advises schools to shut down conversations about suicide and to quietly disestablish memorials set up to students who have taken their own lives. Some schools have refused to allow funerals of students who have killed themselves to be held on site and banned students from working on projects about suicide.
These measures are in place to avoid suicide contagion — a phenomenon where somebody suffering from mental health issues or depression might make the impulsive decision to end their life if they hear about suicides in their community.
Just over half of the secondary schools contacted by the refused to engage, with some saying “not everyone believes in media coverage of this issue”.
The 235 schools that replied had experienced a combined 150 student suicides. In one school a Year Nine student had killed themselves only three weeks earlier. Another school had lost six students to suicide since 2007.
One principal said he had dealt with 40 serious suicide attempts or self-harm incidents. Another estimated she had five student suicide attempts a year on average.
Sixty schools said they didn’t have a written suicide policy, despite reporting suicide attempts on school grounds. Thirty-nine said they had no counsellor on-site.
Forty per cent of the schools that responded said they did not feel adequately supported to handle the suicidal behaviour of students.
“I guess the question is, in a country with one of the highest teenage suicide rates in the OECD, are we giving our teenagers the best possible care in schools?” asked Tanya Clark, head of counselling at St Dominic’s Catholic College.
Education Minister Nikki Kaye conceded previous government attempts to address youth suicide had largely failed and it was time for a “national conversation” on the issue.
“Do I think we can do better in terms of support for schools in this area? Yes, I do. and I will be listening to the concerns raised by schools,” Kaye said.
The S word
After a popular, young teacher at Te Whanau Tahi School in Christchurch