Mental Health Matters on Radio Ulster

Yesterday, the SSUNI talked about our Mental Health Matters survey on Radio Ulster. Speaking to Julie McCullough, our Mental Health Officer Morgan said,

“Even before COVID, [mental health] was a national emergency. All the problems that were already there have just been exacerbated by the lockdowns. Even beforehand, the suicide rate for men was three times higher than that of the rest of the UK, and twice as high for women. People that have had mental health problems in the past, such as self harm or eating disorders have relapsed into their problems because they’re not getting the support that they needed during this difficult year - the support that has been neglected them before COVID, aswell as during.”

Our President Cormac also stated that,

“Learning at home will never be the same. Another stark statistic from the survey is that, on a scale of 1-10 (1 being poor, 10 being excellent), 173 students rated their school’s counselling services a “1”, while only thirty rated a “10.””

The Chair and Deputy-Chair of the Working Group, Lucy and Rachel, also spoke about their personal experiences of mental health this year, and how isolation has affected them and the people around them.

Our students are constantly being let down by the inaction of Stormont in the face of the grave mental health situation in Northern Ireland. Young people need efficient change urgently in the form of mental health reform in schools and services in order to enable this change.

We will be addressing this in our upcoming report, which we will be discussing with politicians.

You can find the full segment here, at approximately 27 minutes.