KUALA LUMPUR: Traffic on the main highways heading out of the Klang Valley remained under control on Sunday (June 16) morning as residents head to their hometowns to celebrate Hari Raya Haji which falls on Monday (June 17).
Hong Kong schools have swung into suicide-prevention mode since more than 30 schoolchildren took their lives last year. In the second of a two-part series, the Post examines how teachers and school social workers are coping at the front line of looking out for children in distress, and the multiple other efforts under way to tackle the crisis. Read part one
“Finding out who has mental health needs has become the top priority,” Chan said. “The strategy is to identify potentially suicidal students as early as possible, because we don’t know what they might do when they are not under our supervision outside campus.” Educators and social workers urged the authorities to make permanent a pilot project that shortens the waiting time for students to get help at psychiatric clinics, provide schools with more trained staff to deal with mental health issues and pay attention to teachers’ stress too.
Bureau data also showed that the number of students with mental illness tripled over the past five years from 600 to more than 1,900 last year. “It is quite challenging if they do not seek help or show their self-inflicted wounds to me,” she said. But students’ needs were complex, Wong said. Many became mentally distressed as they struggled to keep up with schoolwork after full-day classes resumed early last year, while also dealing with family conflicts.
Dealing with students’ emotional problems emerged among the stressors, along with teachers’ heavy administrative and teaching workload and handling learning differences. Noting that most students who took their own lives went unnoticed and did not not receive any support, he added: “You need to be very observant to spot subtle signs, such as a chaotic state of mind and lack of appetite.”
Yeung said Hong Kong needed more mental health professionals to support schools and family based services to better address students’ needs. “The emotions of students and teachers are indeed interconnected,” she said. “If teachers are given the time and space to take care of themselves, they will be more sensitive to their students’ emotions.
As of March 31, 168 students had been referred to the Hospital Authority. Only 3 per cent were considered urgent cases, and two-fifths were semi-urgent. “Ultimately it’s teachers who spend the most hours with the students, so schools need to invest in this effort,” she said. “The more they dig in, the more they will identify cases of students in need,” he said. “This is not only about the number of teachers and their years of experience, but also the relationship between teachers and students.”
He said more system changes were coming up, including promoting a “setting approach” to screen, detect and provide early intervention within the schools themselves.
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