Helpline reports big rise in number of children planning to commit suicide

A girl aged 14 telephoned a children’s helpline and told a counsellor, “I want to end it tonight. I’ve written a suicide note and have everything ready.”

Childline, the organisation which received the call, says it conducted more than 60 counselling sessions every day last year with children such as the one above who called or emailed to report suicidal thoughts. This represented a 15 per cent increase on 2015.

More than 2,000 young callers were considered “actively suicidal,” having written a note, given away possessions or laid plans for their death.

Mr Peter Wanless, chief executive of the National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children, said, “We have never seen figures like these before, they are a wake-up call.”

Bullying, isolation, feelings of worthlessness and concerns about sexual and gender identity are among the reasons prompting children to seek help. A boy of 13 was bullied at school after telling a friend he was homosexual. He said, “I would tell a teacher but I don’t want to have to talk about my sexuality with school. It’s all got so overwhelming that I thought about just ending it all.”

MENTAL HEALTH

The NSPCC pointed to widespread concern about waiting times and dilatoriness which young people faced in accessing mental health services.

One Childline caller, Calleigh, aged 18, moved from a small school to a large grammar school and found the pressures to excel overwhelming. She began self-farming by banging her head and cutting her arms, when she was 11, and first thought about suicide when she was 13.

“I remember getting an A in an exam and getting detention because it wasn’t an A*,” she said. “I got more and more down. To get to school I had to cross a railway bridge and I would stand there and think, ‘I could just jump off.’ I didn’t want to tell my parents because I thought they would be disappointed and worried.”

CHILDLINE

Desperate for help, she went to see her doctor, who told her to come back in a few weeks. She approached a teacher at school who promised to follow it up, but nothing happened.

It was contacting Childline that proved her lifeline. “I was able to talk to someone, I’d call them when I wanted to self-harm.” Finally, she got an emergency referral to Adolescent Mental Health Services.

Calleigh is now at university studying psychology. She is taking medication but she is stable and wants to live.

Childline founder and president, Dame Esther Rantzen, says it is vital to find out why so many children are feeling so desperate.

“We must discover why so many of our young people feel so isolated that they turn to Childline because they believe no-one cares about them.”

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This column has carried a number of stories lately about people cheating the benefits system. Here is the other side of the coin.

Hazel Macrae, aged 62, has been blind since birth and suffers from Type 2 diabetes, epilepsy and osteoarthritis. She cannot leave her home without the help of her partner or son and she cannot use a pen or a telephone. As a result, she received an Employment Support Allowance.

PENSIONS

But then the Department for Work and Pensions decided that she had “a limited capacity for work” and her Allowance was re-graded and reduced by £15 per fortnight. She was also told meet with a health professional for a back-to-work assessment.

Said Ms Macrae, “There are no jobs that I can do. I can’t even make a cup of tea because of the boiling water.”

She appealed to the DWP and was told her case would be considered. Meanwhile her local newspaper, the Newcastle Chronicle, headlined her story.

Two days later, the DWP wrote that Ms Macrae’s case had been reviewed and her initial allowance was restored. “Joy for Hazel after U-turn on benefits,” the paper headlined over a photo of Hazel waving her arms with joy.

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When it comes to ethnic food takeaways, Chinese is No 1 in the UK, with the average person forking out nearly £1,000 a year for take-outs. The biggest spenders are in London, followed by Edinburgh, then Birmingham.

ITALIAN FOOD

Next in the grub stakes, a survey showed, is Italian food (mainly pizzas), followed by Indian, American and Mexican.

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A Frenchman, a Mexican, a Bolivian, a Kenyan, an Englishman, a Scotsman, a Chinese and a Russian went to a restaurant for dinner but they were denied  service because they didn’t have a Thai.

First Halloween joke of 2017: A photographer went to a haunted castle after dark on Halloween, determined to get a scary, night-time picture of a ghost. A spectre duly appeared through the wall and happily agreed to pose for him. However, when the photographer downloaded his film back home, all he found was a series of blanks. The problem? The spirit was willing but the flash was weak.

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