Youth Suicide

Of all middle and high income nations with a recent colonial oppressor history, Australia has the widest divide of its measurable indicators between first peoples and the rest of the nation. ATSISPEP is assessing the effectiveness of existing suicide prevention services and programs. In the last year we've buried an 11-year-old, a 12-year-old, a 13-year-old, a 14-year-old, a 16-year-old, a 17-year-old. The Northern Territory and Western Australia have some of the highest median wages in the world but also some of the highest rates of poverty. [node:read-more:link]

Teenager Jordan Chapman can name half a dozen young people in his circle of friends who have taken their own lives. "On Facebook one night she (a friend) just inboxed me, seeing how was I going but I didn't have enough time to reply and I just logged out because I was going to sleep," he said. "I found out the next morning she committed suicide." Asked how someone of his age deals with that kind of loss, 17-year-old Jordan responded quietly: "I don't know. Just play football, go to school, keep my mind off it, don't really think about it." [node:read-more:link]

DEREK'S friends got him into stealing in his mid-teens. He was thrown in juvenile detention twice, cut off from his family and missing school, instead surrounded by endless opportunities for further crime. "It's not easy, you got no family to talk to," he said. "They said, as soon as you hit 18, you'll be heading to the big prison, the man's prison." Derek was one of the lucky ones. While on parole, his uncle organised for him to do community service and later to work at a tourism organisation on his traditional Aboriginal country in the Kimberley. [node:read-more:link]