Youthline’s phone and text message helpline is now available 24 hours a day, seven days a week for young people who need someone to talk to. Photo / 123rf
Youthline’s phone and text message helpline is now available 24 hours a day, seven days a week for young people who need someone to talk to. Photo / 123rf
Bay of Plenty youth facing issues such as anxiety, social withdrawal and low self-esteem need more professional mental health support available at school, principals say.
One says students aged between 11 and 13 now grapple with issues previously not faced until age 15 or 16.
It comes after Youthline’s 2023 State of the Generation report showed the top three issues for young people in the region were depression, mental health challenges and social media – with TikTok their top means of reaching out for help.
Youthlines’s full phone and text message helpline recently became available 24/7 for the first time in its 53-year history, after demand rose by 30,000 calls in a year.
The service connects 12 to 24-year-olds with a registered counsellor. It could previously only take crisis calls between midnight and 8am.
Mount Maunganui Intermediate principal Melissa Nelson welcomed Youthline’s expansion and said intermediate schools faced “a dire shortage of counselling services for young people”.
“As an intermediate school, we are seeing large numbers of students grappling with issues that often arise from social media, causing anxiety and low self-esteem.”
Nelson said intermediate-aged students (11-13, Years 7-8) were “facing the typical developmental challenges that used to be faced by 15 and 16-year-olds”.
Emerging adolescents have often had “unlimited, and often unmonitored, access to the wider world and are not equipped with the emotional maturity to make sense of all they come into contact with”.
Mount Maunganui Intermediate principal Melissa Nelson. Photo / George Novak
She saw students facing issues such as social withdrawal, a lack of resilience and poor attendance.
Nelson said the school did not receive Government funding to employ a trained counsellor.
“This is an ongoing frustration for us as we are educators, not mental health experts.”
Rotorua Intermediate School principal Garry de Thierry said the school had been “fortunate” with regard to its Ministry of Education operational funding, which the school decided to use to fund a fully qualified councillor at the school.
Rotorua Intermediate School principal Garry de Thierry. Photo / Andrew Warner
“We prioritise having a councillor and a support councillor in our school,” de Thierry said.
He said intermediate-age students were going through “physical, intellectual, emotional and social [changes]” and calling for more support.
De Thierry said when intermediate schools were first established in 1922, they were “not set up within the context of social media”, and he believed it was a significant issue for students.
Tauranga psychologist and mediator Kate Ferris said more support was needed for young people.
“New Zealand has some of the worst statistics in the OECD for youth mental health, suicide, bullying, loneliness.
Tauranga psychologist and mediator Kate Ferris said more mental health support was needed for young people.
“Many of my youth clients report significant pressures around their learning, social media and relationships,” Ferris said.
She said New Zealand had “come a long way”, but there was a “lingering stigma around mental health that is a barrier to accessing services for some young people, especially young males”.
Ferriss said for some, a preference for “self-reliance” could be another blocker.
“As a society, we need to acknowledge that it is okay to not be okay, that we all need a bit of help sometimes.”
Rotorua Principals’ Association president and Lynmore School principal Hinei Taute said she believed counselling services should be available to primary-aged students too.
“Mental, social and emotional health and wellbeing is a growing concern in our education sector.”
Lynmore School principal Hinei Taute. Photo / Andrew Warner
Taute said supporting our tamariki at a primary age would “impact positively in [students’] future years”.
Ministry of Education/Te Tāhuhu o te Mātauranga hautū [leader] of operations and integration, Sean Teddy, said state and state-integrated schools with students from Years 9 and up received support, allocated as part of their staffing entitlement.
Teddy said this was for guidance counselling, careers guidance and pastoral care.
He said guidance staffing was calculated using the number of students from Year 9 and above, and larger schools received additional entitlement.
He said Lakes and Bay of Plenty were two of six health districts rolling out Mana Ake – school-based mental wellbeing services to primary and intermediate-age school children.
Youthline chief executive Shae Ronald said its research showed 82 per cent of young people surveyed saw mental health as a key problem for their generation.
“This was followed by social media, as it could create many mental health and social issues,” said Ronald.
She said economic uncertainty was a growing concern, with a quarter of respondents this year affected by recent extreme weather, and half of those reporting it worsened stress or mental health.
Other top-of-mind issues included vaping, peer pressure and body image.
Youthline chief executive Shae Ronald.
Some of the signs a young person may be experiencing a tough time include them “withdrawing from activities they once enjoyed” or feeling “weighed down by negative thoughts and feelings”, said Ronald.
“Research shows that nighttime is typically harder for rangatahi [youth].”
This was often when those already feeling anxious or low could repetitively think negative thoughts, and when some may find it hard to stop scrolling social media.
“That feeling of ‘always on’ can impact the amount of sleep they get, distress levels, and then how they feel and perform the next day.”
She said other issues young people faced included relationship challenges with family, friends and partners; peer pressure; bullying, financial struggles and problems with self-image.
Ronald said many young people felt their problems were “too small” to make them reach out for help, but encouraged them to use Youthline’s free, confidential 24/7 text or call services, which are accessible from anywhere in the country.
The service had been extended in a partnership with ASB Bank.
