Preventing student suicide is not just about reforming Hong Kong’s education system
Paul Yip says case studies reveal that prevention requires efforts from all stakeholders to address every related factor, including family relationships and mental health care
The committee was set up in response to a spate of suicides among schoolchildren in March and April this year. The 21 committee members and 37 members of the five working groups – on school, family, mental health, tertiary students and social media – worked tirelessly over the past six months. The committee reviewed information from 71 cases in the past two years, based on Coroner’s Court reports, police investigations, school reports and family interviews.
Some 74 per cent of students who committed suicide had suffered from poor family relationships
We have identified multiple factors that contribute to students taking their lives and nearly all suffered more than one single cause, not to mention the knowledge and service gaps on suicide prevention.
The report’s recommendations aim to remove barriers and strengthen the existing systems to tackle student suicides more comprehensively. Specifically, schools need support to free up time and space to care for their students; families and youth require knowledge on mental health needs, ways to seek help and early detection and intervention; gaps in the mental health service system for schools also need to be filled. All in all, we need to improve our systems (including school, health care, welfare and family) to promote a nurturing environment for our children.
Multi-pronged approach needed to tackle student suicides
Some in the community mistakenly believe the report tried to say there is no relationship between suicide and the school system. What the report has established, based on the investigation of cases, is that there is no direct causal link between the two, but certainly all these causes (including family, mental health and adjustment problems) are related and need to be dealt with.