RAD­HI­CA DE SIL­VA

Se­nior Mul­ti­me­dia Re­porter

rad­hi­ca.sookraj@guardian.co.tt

Men­tal health prac­ti­tion­ers in T&T are sound­ing the alarm as youth sui­cide rates climb, fu­elled by bul­ly­ing, so­cio-eco­nom­ic strug­gles, psy­cho­log­i­cal dis­tress, and a crit­i­cal lack of aware­ness among fam­i­lies, friends, and peers.

Child­line Trinidad and To­ba­go has re­port­ed that over the past year, re­ports of phys­i­cal bul­ly­ing have in­creased by 66 per cent while re­ports of ver­bal and cy­ber-bul­ly­ing have dou­bled. The Sui­cide Pre­ven­tion hot­line mean­while re­port­ed to Guardian Me­dia that 1,851 dis­tress calls were re­ceived from Oc­to­ber 2024 to Jan­u­ary 8.

Since the start of the year, there have been mul­ti­ple sui­cides. Most re­cent­ly, on March 6, a 19-year-old woman was found dead at her San­gre Grande home.

On March 4, the son of a promi­nent South busi­ness­man was al­so found in his Williamsville apart­ment in an ap­par­ent sui­cide.

In Jan­u­ary, three youths killed them­selves. On Jan­u­ary 15, a 16-year-old pupil was found hang­ing at her En­ter­prise home. Ten days lat­er on Jan­u­ary 25, Amit Ram­per­sad, 19, of San Fran­cique, Pe­nal, al­so took his life by in­gest­ing poi­son. He was found by his twin broth­er. The youngest of this trio, aged 12, from Glen­coe, was found dead at her home on Jan­u­ary 30.

Last Oc­to­ber 3, Form Four stu­dent Jay­den Lalchan, 15, al­so com­mit­ted sui­cide at his Broomage Vil­lage, Princes Town home.

Lalchan’s death trig­gered a se­ries of protests and can­dle­light vig­ils.

Speak­ing to Guardian Me­dia, psy­chol­o­gist/ed­u­ca­tor and As­sis­tant Pro­fes­sor for the Cen­tre for Ed­u­ca­tion Pro­grammes at the Uni­ver­si­ty of T&T, Dr Mar­garet Nakhid-Cha­toor, em­pha­sised the grav­i­ty of the sit­u­a­tion, not­ing that “youth sui­cide is not just a per­son­al tragedy; it is a na­tion­al cri­sis that re­flects deep­er so­ci­etal is­sues.”

Dr Nakhid-Cha­toor said the da­ta shows ac­tion is need­ed now.

“At this point in our his­to­ry, there must be a Call to Ac­tion – where our gov­ern­ments are held ac­count­able for the men­tal health and well-be­ing of young per­sons, as we ad­vo­cate for sus­tained in­vest­ment in men­tal health,” Dr Nakhid-Cha­toor said.

She re­vealed that glob­al­ly, sui­cide is the sec­ond lead­ing cause of death among in­di­vid­u­als aged 15-29. How­ev­er, in T&T, she said eco­nom­ic in­sta­bil­i­ty, high un­em­ploy­ment rates, and an in­crease in so­cial iso­la­tion post-COVID-19 con­tribute to the prob­lems.

Bul­ly­ing, both in-per­son and on­line, has al­so emerged as a sig­nif­i­cant fac­tor.

“There has been a dra­mat­ic in­crease in child sui­cides, as young as nine years old in this coun­try, a few years ago. In coun­tries like Guyana, Suri­name, and Trinidad and To­ba­go – sui­ci­dal rates are high­est, with Cu­ba and Haiti re­cent­ly added to the top five, due to the re­cent in­creased in­ter­play of so­ci­etal dis­tur­bances and eco­nom­ic tur­moil in these lat­ter coun­tries,” Nakhid-Cha­toor re­vealed.

She not­ed that sub­stance abuse and men­tal health dis­or­ders al­so con­tribute as risk fac­tors.

“Men­tal and ad­dic­tive dis­or­ders, drug abuse, and bul­ly­ing are sig­nif­i­cant fac­tors con­tribut­ing to sui­cide and men­tal health dis­or­ders, in­clud­ing de­pres­sion, anx­i­ety, and sub­stance use dis­or­ders, which ac­count for a sub­stan­tial por­tion of the over­all dis­ease bur­den. Eco­nom­ic strain and in­creased un­em­ploy­ment post-COVID-19 have con­tributed to high­er rates of drug con­sump­tion by youth,” she added.

De­spite on­go­ing ef­forts to ad­dress men­tal health con­cerns, she said gaps re­main in the sup­port sys­tems avail­able to at-risk youth.

“There is a crit­i­cal need for in­creased aware­ness and ed­u­ca­tion about men­tal health. Many young peo­ple and their fam­i­lies lack the knowl­edge to recog­nise the signs of men­tal dis­tress and sui­ci­dal ideation. How do we pre­pare chil­dren for adult­hood? How do we teach them cop­ing mech­a­nisms as they nav­i­gate the volatil­i­ty of life,” she said.

She al­so said there are not enough trained pro­fes­sion­als, and stig­ma of­ten pre­vents in­di­vid­u­als from seek­ing help.

She stressed the im­por­tance of ear­ly in­ter­ven­tion. “Men­tal health ed­u­ca­tion should be in­te­grat­ed in­to the school cur­ricu­lum. We need to teach stu­dents about re­silience, cop­ing strate­gies, and how to seek help. Pre­ven­tion starts with knowl­edge.”

At a re­cent an­ti-bul­ly­ing sem­i­nar at Shi­va Boys’ Col­lege, stu­dent Maya Gob­in said trou­bled stu­dents do not trust mem­bers of the Stu­dent Sup­port Ser­vices be­cause of the stig­ma. She said par­ents are not trust­ed ei­ther, as trou­bled stu­dents are afraid of mak­ing their par­ents dis­ap­point­ed.

Ad­dress­ing the gaps

While Ed­u­ca­tion Min­is­ter Dr Nyan Gads­by-Dol­ly told Guardian Me­dia she has ex­pand­ed the Stu­dent Sup­port Ser­vices by hir­ing more trained per­son­nel and set­ting up 18 Stu­dent Sup­port spaces in a range of schools, ex­perts say the avail­abil­i­ty of men­tal health ser­vices for young peo­ple in T&T re­mains in­ad­e­quate.

Pro­fes­sor of Psy­chi­a­try at The Uni­ver­si­ty of the West In­dies, St Au­gus­tine, Ger­ard Hutchin­son, says there is in­suf­fi­cient as­sess­ment and no ded­i­cat­ed in­pa­tient beds at the coun­try’s ado­les­cent clin­ics for chil­dren or­dered by the court or the Chil­dren’s Au­thor­i­ty to un­der­take treat­ment.

Hutchin­son re­vealed that there is a pro­posed fa­cil­i­ty in Cou­va, but he says the ed­u­ca­tion sys­tem re­mains un­der-re­sourced to deal with child sui­cides.

He said much more aware­ness and ed­u­ca­tion about de­vel­op­men­tal dis­or­ders like AD­HD, Autism, learn­ing dis­abil­i­ties and de­pres­sion in child­hood al­so needs to be done na­tion­al­ly to ad­dress men­tal health is­sues among chil­dren.

“Man­ag­ing the ubiq­ui­tous trau­ma that chil­dren are ex­posed to, help­ing them aca­d­e­m­i­cal­ly, bul­ly­ing both in schools and on­line, cater­ing to gen­der-spe­cif­ic needs—boys are not do­ing well; do­mes­tic vi­o­lence; in­cest and child sex­u­al abuse; self-harm and sui­ci­dal be­hav­iour—all of these things par­ents and teach­ers and the wider so­ci­ety need to know more about; sex­u­al ed­u­ca­tion is an­oth­er area,” Pro­fes­sor Hutchin­son said.

Re­gard­ing how the ed­u­ca­tion sys­tem can work along­side men­tal health pro­fes­sion­als to cre­ate a safer en­vi­ron­ment for stu­dents, Hutchin­son re­vealed: “The ed­u­ca­tion sys­tem has the Stu­dent Sup­port Ser­vices but they are un­der-re­sourced, and there needs to be for­mal col­lab­o­ra­tion with the men­tal health ser­vices and the PTAs, aca­d­e­m­ic, and sports and phys­i­cal ed­u­ca­tion sec­tors.”

On the role of so­cial me­dia in in­flu­enc­ing the men­tal health of chil­dren and ado­les­cents, Hutchin­son ex­plained, “So­cial me­dia ex­ac­er­bates un­der­ly­ing vul­ner­a­bil­i­ties, and is­sues with self-im­age; peer pres­sure, lit­er­a­cy and nu­mer­a­cy de­vel­op­ment and so­cial skill de­vel­op­ment; al­so ear­ly and in­ap­pro­pri­ate sex­u­al­i­sa­tion.”

He al­so called for com­mu­ni­ties to cre­ate a sup­port sys­tem for chil­dren strug­gling with men­tal health is­sues.

While men­tal health sup­port for chil­dren is avail­able through the child and ado­les­cent clin­ics in var­i­ous lo­ca­tions, Hutchin­son em­pha­sised that greater col­lab­o­ra­tion, aware­ness, and re­sources were need­ed to ad­dress the ris­ing cri­sis of child sui­cides.

So­lu­tions and pre­ven­ta­tive mea­sures

Med­ical prac­ti­tion­er and psy­chi­atric reg­is­trar Dr Var­ma Deyals­ingh says ur­gent re­forms are need­ed to ad­dress youth men­tal health in the coun­try.

“We need to ed­u­cate par­ents and na­tion­als about the men­tal health cri­sis which now be­fall our youth,” Dr Deyals­ingh said.

He called for open con­ver­sa­tions about men­tal health, say­ing this is crit­i­cal in break­ing stig­mas and en­cour­ag­ing young peo­ple to seek help.

“We need to let chil­dren learn to ex­press their emo­tions, and call­ing a hot­line should not be a stig­ma. We need to have hot­line num­bers plas­tered on bill­boards in­stead of al­co­hol ad­ver­tise­ments. 1800-COPE should be im­print­ed on the minds of chil­dren as a medi­um they can seek help,” he stat­ed.

He fur­ther stressed the im­por­tance of util­is­ing dig­i­tal plat­forms to reach young peo­ple where they spend most of their time.

“We need to reach chil­dren through their medi­um with pop-up ad­ver­tis­ing and hot­line num­bers in so­cial me­dia.”

Ad­dress­ing the role of the ed­u­ca­tion sys­tem, Dr Deyals­ingh ad­vo­cat­ed for in­te­grat­ing men­tal health ini­tia­tives with­in schools.

“We need pe­ri­od­ic de­pres­sion and men­tal health test­ing in­tro­duced in schools. We need peer men­tal health trainees who may be more ac­cept­able. We need quick­er re­fer­rals to Stu­dent Sup­port Ser­vices. We need an anony­mous bul­ly­ing hot­line.”

He al­so called for an ed­u­ca­tion sys­tem that ac­com­mo­dates stu­dents fac­ing chal­lenges at home.

“Not all chil­dren start at a lev­el play­ing field; some may have a tox­ic home. So don’t rush all to fin­ish their ex­am­i­na­tion at a par­tic­u­lar age but when they are ready, with­out them feel­ing in­fe­ri­or. Our ed­u­ca­tion sys­tem should not fur­ther trau­ma­tise our chil­dren.”

On Fri­day, Child Af­fairs Min­is­ter Ayan­na Web­ster-Roy told Guardian Me­dia the Gov­ern­ment will soon es­tab­lish an on­line Di­rec­to­ry of Ser­vices for Chil­dren to help chil­dren, par­ents, guardians, and pro­fes­sion­als quick­ly con­nect with es­sen­tial ser­vices.

This di­rec­to­ry will in­clude health­care, ed­u­ca­tion, coun­selling, and le­gal as­sis­tance. She said a child-friend­ly web­site will al­so be de­vel­oped to host on­line cours­es on men­tal health, child rights, and child pro­tec­tion, as well as of­fer brochures, videos, and work­books. A health and well­ness fair will al­so be held for chil­dren, in­clud­ing those with dis­abil­i­ties, she added.

Ed­u­ca­tion Min­is­ter Gads­by-Dol­ly said there has been the ex­pan­sion of Stu­dent Sup­port Ser­vices, peer coun­selling sys­tems and tar­get­ed an­ti-bul­ly­ing pro­grammes, teacher sen­si­ti­sa­tion and su­per­vi­so­ry train­ing to tack­le the prob­lem. So­cial De­vel­op­ment Min­is­ter Don­na Cox al­so said there had been in­creased com­mu­ni­ty par­ent­ing work­shops, grand­par­ent work­shops and oth­er pro­grammes to build fam­i­ly and com­mu­ni­ty life.

Get Help! Call Hot­lines

FAM­I­LY SER­VICES - 800-COPE (2673)

LIFE­LINE: 800-5588/866-5433/ 220-3636

CHILD­LINE: 800-4321 or Di­al 131

Look out for Part 2- Ris­ing Sui­cides Among In­do-Trinida­di­an males