Alarm at record toll of suicidal children
MORE than 24,000 children have contacted Childline about suicidal thoughts, a report reveals today.
The NSPCC’s anonymous helpline has received a record number of calls, texts and emails in the last year from youngsters who have thought about taking their own life, it says.
And the number who mentioned anxiety when talking to one of the charity’s 1,300 volunteer counsellors has more than doubled in the past two years, up from 11,706 to just over 21,000.
Dame Esther Rantzen, who founded Childline 32 years ago, said: “Back in 1986 – which I can remember so clearly – we were inundated with calls from young people talking about terrible things other people were doing to them, be it sexual abuse, physical abuse, bullying. Now we are seeing this exponential increase in mental health issues.”
Fragmented family lives, exam stress and the pressure to keep up appearances on social media are among the challenges children face. Dame Esther said. “The social interaction of young people today with people who love them unconditionally and to whom they belong has diminished hugely with the fragmentation of the extended family.”
Childline’s annual report, called The Courage To Talk, also revealed that fewer than one in five young people who contacted the charity was male.
NSPCC chief executive Peter Wanless said the helpline was “increasingly filling the gap left by public mental health services”.
Under a third of young people referred to the NHS’s child and adolescent mental health service receive treatment within 12 months.
The Government last year announced a £300million plan to improve mental health support in schools.