Agencies, charities ramp up help for the young and troubled

More kids and teens struggling with mental health issues, from depression to anxiety

- Syarafana Shafeeq

Whenever 17-year-old Nur Zehan Fahira starts to have spiralling negative thoughts, she picks up her phone and sends a text to her social worker.

Things could have turned out very differently for the teen, who, at the age of eight, once thought of taking her own life because she was being bullied and had an unstable family life.

With more children and teenagers like Zehan struggling with mental health issues, from depression to anxiety, social service agencies and charities have ramped up their work to serve the young and troubled.

The Government has also made strides in destigmatising mental illness and helping those who are suffering, with a national plan launched in October. Among its initiatives are an intermediate residential facility for young people aged 10 to 19 at risk of suicide or severe self-harm.

In school, mental health topics have been woven into lessons on character and citizenship education in the last two years, and peer support groups have been set up.

New charity Suncare SG, set up a year ago, has started running mental well-being programmes for children and youth, such as training secondary school students to be peer supporters.

There were 476 suicides reported in Singapore in 2022, the highest since 2000, according to the Samaritans of Singapore (SOS). Of the deaths in 2022, 125 involved those aged 10 to 29. This is 13 more than in 2021 and another high since 2000, when SOS started recording data.

SOS told The Sunday Times that 76 per cent of texts from its crisis WhatsApp service, CareText, are from youth. This translates to 22,703 texts in the last financial year.

The suicide incidence rate for young people aged 10 to 19 was 8.9 per 100,000 in 2021 and 6.6 per 100,000 in 2022, based on data from the Immigration and Checkpoints Authority. This is compared with 4.4 in 2018, 4.0 in 2019 and 5.5 in 2020.