One child under 18 every week takes their own life. Picture: Thinkstock. Source: Supplied
CHILDREN as young as three are being hospitalised for harming themselves, according to a groundbreaking report on youth suicide and self harm in Australia.
The Children’s Commissioner Megan Mitchell has called for a thorough evaluation of the effectiveness of support programs for kids, after tabling a report to parliament this week showing 18,227 children and young people were hospitalised in Australia for intentional self harm over the last five years.
“One child under 18 every week takes their own life, and between 50 and 60 children every week are admitted to hospital for self harming incidents” Ms Mitchell told News Corp.
“These are big numbers we ought to be concerned about it.”
Ms Mitchell said the data alarmingly showed that children as young as three were hospitalised for intentional self harm.
New data in a groundbreaking report shows children as young as three are being hospitalised for intentional self harm. Picture: Thinkstock Source: News Limited
It reveals another five Australian children aged between four to 11 died from intentional self harm.
Ms Mitchell says it reinforces the need for parents to be alert to the risks of child suicide and self harm earlier than previously thought.
“People were telling me that younger and younger children were self harming but (until now) there wasn’t any data to support that,” she said.
“This shows us there is a big jump in suicidal behaviour between the 12-13 year olds and the 14-15 year olds, and what that tells me is that we need to get in much earlier to work with kids and build their resilience,” Ms Mitchell said.
Information from Kids Helpline provided to the Children’s Commissioner shows boys are significantly less likely to seek help, with just 12 per cent of inquiries coming from boys.
However when boys seek help they are far more likely to want to talk directly to a person over the phone than, rather than turn to the internet for assistance.
Boys remain significantly more likely to take their own lives than girls.
The Commissioner now wants more research to be done on the hundreds of support services currently available to kids at risk, to better understand what works and what may actually expose children to more harm.
She also says Australians have been “a little bit too timid” to properly talk about the issue of youth suicide to date.
Originally published as Toddlers in ‘self harm’ shock