With four medical aspirants ending their lives this past week in Tamil Nadu, psychologists and activists working with children are stressing the need for institutional mechanisms and ecosystems to reach out to those in need of emotional support.
The National Crime Records Bureau’s report on suicides for 2019 shows that 2,744 children ended their lives citing failure in exams, of which 215 (roughly 8%) were from Tamil Nadu.
Highlighting that these suicides were preventable, Anjali Singla, consultant and psychologist at The Banyan Academy of Leadership in Mental Health and principal-coordinator for the Movement for Global Mental Health, said having helplines alone was not the solution.
“We often become content with providing a helpline. We must move towards having mechanisms in place that will prevent children from even reaching the stage of having to access a helpline,” she said.
Pointing out that there was an acute lack of trained professionals who understand stress among children and recognise it at an early stage, she said that having a counsellor, who predominantly works part-time, for 200 to 300 children, would not have any impact.
“Tamil Nadu has one of the highest suicide rates in the country. The Mental Healthcare Act of 2017 demands the development of a suicide-prevention plan by all States. But how many have done it?” she asked.
A. Devaneyan, a child rights’ activist from the organisation Thozhamai, said there was an utter lack of life skills training in schools. “We always react after a suicide happens and then the discussion dies soon,” he said.
Blaming schools, teachers and parents for focusing on scoring good marks as the only measure of success, he said it was high time that teachers were trained to change their focus and double up as counsellors. “We have not even reached a stage where we have a counsellor in each school. Therefore, teachers should be trained to act as counsellors too,” he said.
He said that apart from NEET, children’s issues never got the necessary political attention. “At the time of a pandemic, in which children are affected in many ways, we have a State Commission for Protection of Child Rights without a head and members,” he said.
S. Selvamani, project director, Happy Schooling Project, which is being executed in collaboration with the M.S. Chellamuthu Trust, HCL Foundation and Madurai Corporation in 24 Corporation-run schools, said experience in the field had made them realise that suicides could be brought down if students are engaged in the right manner.
“Last year, as part of the project, we held special activity-based sessions on tackling exam-related stress, in which many students opened up about their anxieties,” he said.
Pointing out that the project also aimed at identifying teachers who have an inclination towards providing psychological support to children and training them, he said that similar models must be replicated across the State.
(Assistance for overcoming suicidal thoughts is available on the State’s health helpline 104 and Sneha’s suicide prevention helpline 044-24640050.)
