In Southern Ontario, the small town of Woodstock, with roughly 38,000 residents, had five young people 19 and under commit suicide since the beginning of 2016. Local authorities noted that another 36 teens were known to have expressed suicidal thoughts or attempted suicide in neighbouring communities. How can this be? Where are we as a society going wrong?
Well, the issue of youth suicide is nothing new in both Canada and the U.S. Indeed, according to a 2011 U.S. study by the University of Washington, children as young as nine years old are attempting to kill themselves every year. Nearly 40 per cent of those who attempted suicide first tried to kill themselves in elementary or middle school. Suicide is the second-leading cause of death for Canadians between the ages of 10 and 24. According to Statistics Canada, 25 people in Canada aged 10 to 14 committed suicide in 2008. Girls are more likely to commit suicide than boys, and the proportion of girls dying by their own hand is increasing. Depression was detected in 40 per cent of suicides. Cyberbullying may play a bigger role in youth suicide today than it did a decade ago. These are not simply statistics, each number represents someone’s child.
According to recent research, teens who had a schoolmate die by suicide are more likely to consider or attempt taking their own lives than those who haven’t lost a peer to suicide — and the fallout can be longer lasting than once thought. That effect, known as “suicide contagion,” can last two years or longer. Some believe that this form of contagion may have happened in Woodstock.
Whatever the causes, societies have to seriously begin tackling this issue. Resources have to be allocated to deal with youth mental health issues, reducing the daily pressures and stressors affecting young people, better educating the general population and instituting a comprehensive national strategy to address the issue. Suicide prevention programs need to focus on elementary and middle school populations as well as high school populations. The number of youth suicides, especially among girls, has been increasing in recent years. We cannot afford to continue to needlessly loose our children and adolescents to suicide. The time for talk is over. The time for action is now.
FROLITICKS 