'We hope it's just a blip': Rise in children reporting suicidal thoughts to Childline
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Children's crisis service Childline has seen a spike in young callers experiencing suicidal thoughts, amid a growing sense of anxiety about the future amid the Covid-19 pandemic.
Between 25 and 30 children a week have been contacting the 24-hour service expressing suicidal ideation over the past month.
The 24-hour service is gearing up for Christmas Day, when it traditionally receives hundreds of calls from children who can be distressed or worried on what should be one of the happiest days of the year.
However, Childline CEO John Church said that the past four to five weeks had seen a rise (though from a low base) in the number of contacts made with the service by children expressing suicidal ideation.
He said he hoped it was a blip but admitted that the figure is concerning. The service typically fields up to 800 calls per day and Childline said a growing number of contacts through the year involved the impact of the pandemic.
In response, the Children's Ombudsman, Niall Muldoon, to call on the Government to set up a Children's Rights Impact Assessment when it came to considering the impact of various measures (including those linked to the pandemic) rather than looking to mitigate the effect afterwards.
Regarding the Childline contacts, Mr Church said: "There has been quite an increase in self-harm and suicidal ideation, which would be very worrying.
"It has gone from 0.5% to 2.5% of calls. That is a trend in the last few weeks. We hope it's just a blip. It's enough to be concerned about."
Mr Church said the Childline webchat service was now more popular, linked to the fact that children are spending more time online and often feel they have a greater degree of confidentiality in the household by using the webchat function, rather than making a call.
The service has also gone 24 hours a day with its text service, and Mr Church said the type of contacts Childline has received during the year has changed.
"At the very start of Covid there were different types of calls," he said. "Children were concerned about getting Covid, about their family getting Covid, their grandparents.
"Next March we will be two years into this and you see that stress and strain impact on children.
"There is an awful lot more calls about anxiety. That is very, very high. Anxiety about life, about the future, being locked down, studying for exams, not knowing about their future."
As for the smaller number of contacts that reference suicide, he said these were generally being made by girls, whereas overall more boys use the service.
"On reading into it and looking at the transcripts, it is a build-up of anxiety, a sense of hopelessness," he said.
"A lot of comments you hear are that children are resilient, they'll be fine, that it's the older people [we need to be concerned about], but we are seeing this latent build-up, isolation from friends, isolation from school, from coaches."
Mr Muldoon said the Government needed to take children into account when putting laws and public health measures in place.
"Coming back afterwards and trying to minimise the negative impacts that changes or restrictions have had on children is not good enough almost two years in," Mr Muldoon said.
"We all understand that decisions must be made in the interest of public health.
"However, the impact that decisions will have on children should be considered prior to, and as part of, the decision-making process.
"The Government need to be establishing a process to generate a Children’s Rights Impact Assessment, a specific procedure that balances children’s best interests with changes that need to be made from a public health point of view is needed."