NT teen self harm epidemic looming

Self harm amongst NT teenagers- including cutting, burning, pulling hair out and substance abuse – is reaching epidemic levels, a national telephone counselling service has warned.

Kids Help Line, the only national telephone counselling service for youth, said analysis of its 2004 statistics “revealed the alarming new trend”.

The service’s general manager Wendy Reid said of 287 counselling calls taken from NT youth last year, five per cent indicated recent self-harm such as cutting, burning or tattooing skin, pulling out hair and substance overdoses.

And she said that five per cent would be “just the tip of the iceberg”, accounting only for youth with “the courage” to call.

It is the first time data on self-harm has been collected after telephone counsellors reported it an in increasing subject Australia-wide.

The biggest issue for NT callers however was relationships, with half of the 122 calls taken about relationship difficulties regarding “frequent major family conflict”.

Bullying

The second biggest concern was emotional problems, accounting for 13 per cent of total calls – the highest rate in the NT in a decade.

Loneliness was the most common emotional problem, with NT youth five times as likely as other Australian youth to suffer loneliness.

Five callers spoke of suicide.

Problems at school ranked the third-biggest issue, with more than half of 33 youth counselled in the area complaining about bullying.

And calls about child abuse ranked the fourth top complaint, with the NT rate of telephone counselling about child abuse twice as high as the Australian average.

Sixty per cent of the NT’s 21 callers in this area said they were being physically abused, triple the rate of 2003.

Six callers reported sexual abuse, and Kids Help Line passed the details of four callers in this area on to child protection authorities.

A quarter of calls from the NT came from indigenous youth – quadruple the national rate.

“Clearly there is an increasing level of psychological distress among this country’s children and young people – often due to abuse, family breakdown, isolation or bullying – or a mixture of these resulting in strong feelings such as anger, despair or self hatred,” Ms Reid said.

Kids Help Line is available 24 hours on free call 1800 55 1800 or online at www.kidshelp.com.au.

Newshawk: http://www.napnt.org
Pubdate: Wed, 16th March 2005
Source: The Darwin Sun
Author: Narelle Hine
Website: http://www.thedarwinsun.com
Email: mailsun@ntn.newsltd.com.au
Copyright: 2005 The Darwin Sun