Action urged on child wellbeing

WELLINGTON: Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern wants New Zealand to be the best place in the world to grow up, but Unicef’s latest child wellbeing rankings put the country among the worstperforming in the developed world.

Ms Ardern said progress was being made — and pointed out that some of the data used in the Unicef report was out of date — but organisations on the front lines said progress was slow or getting worse.

Of the 41 OECD and European countries surveyed, New Zealand ranks 35th for overall child wellbeing.

On mental wellbeing alone, New Zealand sits 38th. Its youth suicide rate is among the worst in the developed world.

Jazz Thornton is a cofounder of Voices of Hope, a notforprofit trying to break the stigma concerning mental health.

‘‘We are seeing young people across the country struggling and struggling to speak up and struggling to access the help that they need,’’ she said.

The Unicef report put the suicide rate for 15 to 19yearolds at 14.9 per 100,000 adolescents, averaging data from the three years to 2015.

Figures released last month by the Chief Coroner put the 2019 rate for that age group at 18.7 per 100,000 adolescents.

‘‘I think that there has been a lot of talk, a lot of promises, a lot of funding that has been allocated to services within mental health, but we’re yet to see a lot of that actioned and spent,’’ Ms Thornton said.

Denise KingiUluave, chief executive of Le Va, which supports Pasifika families, said the Unicef findings were not surprising.

‘‘Rates of significant symptoms of depression and suicide attempts are particularly high for young people living in highdeprivation neighbourhoods and the impact of these hardships is especially evident in our Maori and Pacific communities.’’

Services needed to gear up in order to deal with the longterm impacts of the pandemic on young people.

‘‘We need to have services that can meet those needs, and unfortunately historically we’ve invested mainly in mental health services that service our top 3% of the population who are most unwell.

‘‘What we need to do now is make sure that we have a focus on early intervention and prevention.’’

New Zealand also ranked poorly on physical health, with the secondworst childhood obesity rates in the OECD.

The figures from 2016 showed close to 40% of 5 to 19yearolds were overweight or obese.

The most recent New Zealand Health Survey, for 201819, showed 31% of children aged from 214 were overweight or obese.

Dave Letele, of BBM Motivation, an organisation in south Auckland focused on helping whanau live healthier lives, doubted the statistics had improved.

‘‘On the ground we see it all the time, and in the most deprived areas, it’s just getting worse and worse and worse.’’

When money was tight, it could be hard for families to make healthy choices.

‘‘Look around . . . in any of the poor areas. There’s fast food chains, there’s liquor stores, everything bad is there, and it’s cheap.’’ — RNZ