Mental health initiative launched to help youth when 'red flags' appear

School counsellors, social workers will be trained to spot and tackle distress

- Ang Qing

Young people with poor mental health will get more help through a programme that trains school counsellors and social workers to spot red flags and tackle distress before it escalates.

The Youth Connect Psychological Interventions framework, launched on June 20, aims to address a mental health crisis among Singapore's adolescents, which had brewed silently until the Covid-19 pandemic, said programme head Dr Angelina Ang, a senior consultant in the emergency department of KK Women's and Children's Hospital (KKH).

It comes after the hospital studied patients aged 10 to 19 who had been admitted to its emergency department in 2021 for trying to harm or kill themselves.

The study, published in February, found that about one in five of these adolescents had visited a hospital or polyclinic for medically unexplained physical symptoms like headaches and stomach aches within the year prior to attempting self-harm or suicide.

Said Dr Ang: "Medically unexplained symptoms are red flags - symptoms of distress, anxiety, or maybe even abuse, and if we continue to sweep them under the carpet, they will crash on the child."