Appalling data from the child and teen helpline, SafeSpot, unearthed a raft of issues affecting the nation’s children, with St Catherine leading the contacts of suicidal ideations, suicidal attempts, emotional distress and self-harming behaviour.

The 2022 statistics were disclosed at a briefing by the Office of the Children’s Advocate (OCA) on Wednesday, which was recognised as International Child Helpline Day.

Over the 12-month period, SafeSpot received a total of 2,345 contacts of which 485 were males and approximately 1,600 were females who overwhelmingly contacted the helpline.

Most of the contacts were between ages 16 and 17 with majority being males, followed by age group 13 to 15 with majority being females, then age group 10 to 12.

Surprisingly, the youngest contact was a three-year-old who was aided by a caregiver to reach out about a case of child abuse which was referred for greater intervention.

In presenting the key findings which pointed to mental health as the most common issue, Children’s Advocate Diahann Gordon Harrison said suicidal thoughts and suicidal attempts regrettably are featured greatly.

“If you look at St Catherine, you’ll see that it is in the lead in terms of children who disclose that they have suicidal ideations and have actually attempted suicide over this past year. The females are really expressing that issue as a concern of theirs when compared to the boys,” said Gordon Harrison as she pointed to a pie chart presented on screen.

“We have as well females in Kingston, which is the second group compared to St Catherine, speaking about suicidal thoughts and suicidal attempts, and interestingly, Kingston featured as the parish that had mostly males reaching out about those issues,” she said.

As for self-harming behaviour, while St Catherine led with females disproportionately when compared to males, data showed St Andrew was second in line with contacts most of which were females, followed by St James, respectively.

Pointing to emotional distress, Gordon Harrison said, “St Catherine is leading the pack with females disproportionately represented, because interestingly, we had no males who contacted us from St Catherine that spoke about having fear and anxiety problems. Next in line was Kingston and again females leading the pack there and in terms of males, non-existent. The only representation I am seeing coming from males is out of Hanover and it was one person.”

Other key findings from the data revealed that majority of contacts about family relationships, academic concerns and relationship with caregivers were from Kingston, while contacts relating to concerns about self and peer relations were frequent in Portland which was the only parish that had boys leading over girls.

Executive director at Children First, Claudette Richardson Pious, who was present at the briefing, expressed worry about the alarming data.

She stressed that there should be an urgent approach in designing a national strategy to deal with children who have challenges.

“I am very concerned though that in terms of a national strategy, in reaching our troubled children, we are still not there and with all the work we are doing, it is still very silos and piecemeal and we are not looking at a comprehensive child support system and that for me is a concern,” said Pious.

“I am also very concerned as to continuity for SafeSpot and really looking at policies, where are we in really looking at mental health of our children,” she added.

SafeSpot was launched in May 2021 by the OCA, Private Sector Organisation of Jamaica and the United Nations Children’s Fund Jamaica Office in May 2021.

It was designed to assist children and teenagers experiencing challenges, or who may be feeling overwhelmed with adapting to changes caused by the coronavirus pandemic.