HELPING OUR YOUTH KEY TO FUTURE

THERE are few things more important to our future than investing in our youth of today. In the teenage or early adult years, at the time of life most of us enjoyed new-found freedoms, the Covid generation were cooped up, banned from international or even interstate travel, forced out of school and kept apart from their friends.

At a time they should have been able to live relatively carefree, they instead lived with fearful parents in a world of unknowns.

Most of the sacrifices they made were to protect those older and more vulnerable.

Sure, people have survived, and continue to survive, in much worse circumstances but there is no denying the disruption caused by the pandemic entered the consciousness of even our youngest children, and will likely have a lasting effect.

Last October, the Mercury reported the results of the second annual Student Wellbeing Survey, which spoke to more than 23,000 Tasmanian students. A third of those surveyed said they were worried about their school and home life and a similar proportion reported not having a nutritious breakfast or a good night’s sleep.

We’ll likely see new results next month, but it’s hard to imagine much change for the better.

In Monday’s Mercury, we revealed that school suspensions were through the roof; 2021 was on track to be the worst year for suspensions in many years, with 4300 students kicked out of class in the first two terms alone.

According to shadow education minister Josh Willie, there are just 69 school psychologists employed across the state, a ratio of one to 890.

While schools and teachers need a variety of disciplinary tools in their arsenal to address poor behaviour, suspending students might be effective in some circumstances but, in others, further removing the routine from kids’ lives or leaving them to exist in a less-than-ideal home situation may not help.

If we can’t help them at school or at home, the next stop can be truly devastating.

They can find themselves inside facilities such as Ashley Detention Centre, which the government has finally accepted to be a dysfunctional and troubling establishment mired by horrific abuse allegations. Despite the government’s decision to shut it down, we still have to wait three years for that outcome. What about the kids there now? Or those that find themselves there in the next three years?

The point is, we need to do more for our young people, particularly in the way of mental health support and treatment. No expense is too much.

We must put our young people first – our future depends on it.