A survey among adolescents in the province has some encouraging news about physical health of teens in our area, but their mental health is something to be concerned about.

Annie Smith, Executive Director of the B.C. based non-profit McCreary Centre Society, was on NL Newsday and said there’s a catch 22 when it comes to teens mental health. “What was concerning though is we also saw a rise in young people not getting the mental health care that they felt they needed.”

“So, they acknowledged they had a problem but the weren’t able to access the care that they needed so that’s kind of a worrying piece. They might more aware of their conditions but they’re not getting the help that they need”

Smith shared her concern over teens thinking of ending their lives. “Although we did see a rise in young people considering suicide, we didn’t see any rise in them attempting suicide.”

“And what we also saw locally that was positive was more young people having people in the community they can turn to, more young people reaching out to adults for help. So, I think that’s why we saw the rise in them considering suicide but we didn’t see the same rise in attempts.”

Smith continued, saying the stigma surrounding mental health is less and that’s a good sign. “Young people maybe having the language for it that they didn’t have previously, a greater awareness among health care professionals who are maybe diagnosing things differently to what they would have done in the past.”

Good news from the survey is teens are in better physical shape and are feeling more safe than they did five years ago.

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