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Government pledges to act on Aboriginal youth suicide
The federal government is backing recommendations in a report into youth suicide in the Northern Territory.
The Gone Too Soon report, released by a select committee of NT politicians, found specialist police, youth workers and mental health staff were needed in at-risk areas to help stem the high rate of young people killing themselves.
Young people in the Northern Territory are 3.5 times more likely than the national average to commit suicide, with Aboriginal deaths accounting for 75 per cent of all child suicides between 2007 and 2011.
Today, Indigenous Affairs Minister Jenny Macklin said there were very serious findings in the report that were of grave concern to her personally.
''We will make sure that we make a considered response and also make sure that the additional services that we put in place correspond to the recommendations in the report,'' Ms Macklin told journalists in Darwin.
''We will take this report very seriously.''
Among its 23 recommendations the report said NT police should assign Youth Engagement Police Officers to all growth towns and remote communities where there were high levels of youth offending, substance abuse, and family or community violence.
It said hospital accident and emergency departments should maintain at least one person with mental health training to conduct suicide risk assessments at all times.All shires throughout the NT should have youth development and community development officer positions, the report said.
NT Chief Minister Paul Henderson said the report was very moving.
''There are so many of our indigenous young Territorians committing suicide and some in a large part as a result of sustained and ongoing drug abuse, the problems with psychosis, the lack of self esteem, it is a tragedy,'' Mr Henderson said.
The parliamentary investigation found indigenous suicide programs are fragmented, un-coordinated and failing to make an impact on the alarming numbers of indigenous youth committing suicide in the Northern Territory.
Suicides of indigenous children under the age of 15 are five times the national rate with girls accounting for a previously unheard of 40 per cent. There were no cases of non-indigenous suicide in the same five-year period to 2011 in the Territory.
Most alarming is the fact that data provided by the coroner showed the number of child suicides increased last year after falling in the previous years. The Children's Commissioner, Howard Bath, has described indigenous suicide rates in the territory as amongsthe highest in the world.
The news bears out recent investigations by The Age into indigenous suicide in the Territory and the poorly co-ordinated programs funded to combat the problem.
The report of the Territory committee into youth suicide, released in Darwin yesterday, found that the precise number of young people committing suicide may never be known because of delays in carrying out police and coronial investigations, difficulties in establishing intent and limited bureaucratic definitions of what constituted a suicide.
The select committee chaired by the Territory's former deputy chief minister, Marion Scrymgour, found that a lack of reliable and accessible information about incidents of self-harm seriously hindered understanding and the ability of authorities to respond.
"Our youth suicide rate is 3.5 times the national average; clearly things need to change if we are to stop losing our young people at their own hands at such a high rate," Ms Scrymgour said.
The committee found that the number of suicides could be underestimated by as much as 30 per cent.
"This report highlights the need for the Northern Territory and Federal Governments to work together to provide youth specific counselling, mental health services and recreational facilities."
Almost half of all suicides occur in and around urban Darwin.
Ms Scrymgour said the committee heard evidence of the damage caused by "completed suicides and incidents of self-harm" on families, friends and communities.
Between 2007 to 2011, NT police responded to 419 cases of serious self-harm by young people under the age of 25. In the same period there were 225 completed suicides, 28 involving very young people.
Key recommendations of the report include:
The creation of an NT Suicide Prevention Coordination Committee with representatives of government health and welfare agencies including the children's commissioner, police and the coroner to gather information for prevention and "postvention" strategies.
A need to vastly improve co-ordination and collaboration between government agencies. At present it is difficult to work out what services were delivered by the various agencies. Insufficient consideration was given to the needs of individual communities.
Eliminate the fragmentation of services. The committee heard evidence that in one remote community of 600 people there were 14 separate organisations delivering mental health and welfare services but none were integrated or provided case management.
A need for all levels of government and non-government to audit the distribution and effectiveness of services to better use resources.
The report also found that the most current suicide statistics available were to 2009, but even those statistics could change because a number of coronial investigations had not been finalised. Further, the ABS did not record child suicide rates for children under 15 because of the low number involved across the nation.
The committee also recommended that the territory undertake a "mapping of community related services" and federal governments to identified the aims and objectives of all programs.
Russell Skelton
28 March 012
