Teen died after bouts of bullying

A coroner has recommended more mental health nurses in high schools after a Wellington schoolgirl took her own life.

Coroner Peter Ryan’s report, published this week into the 2013 death of Alatauai Sasa, a year 10 student at St Catherine’s College, says additional support would have benefited the school’s guidance counsellor and possibly helped prevent the tragedy.

The report notes the school’s guidance counsellor provided Alatauai with ‘‘exemplary’’ care, but she was carrying ‘‘an enormous workload’’, and would have benefited from the assistance of a nurse trained in mental health issues, or social worker.

At the time of Alatauai’s death, the counsellor was supporting about 20 other pupils, including some who were in the care of mental health services, two of whom were in crisis.

‘‘This situation is not confined to St Catherine’s College; it extends to many other high schools within the Wellington region (and likely across the country),’’ the report reads.

Alatauai had come to the attention of the counsellor almost a year before her death. In late 2012 she was reported to have suffered bullying, after reporting other students for smoking marijuana on the school grounds.

In October that year, she also became the target of online bullying via a Facebook page named Wellington Schools Confession. The page was closed down after staff informed Facebook of the content.

The cyberbullying resumed in early 2013 via anonymous comments on two websites, Qooh.me and Ask.fm. Many of these comments encouraged her to take her own life.