Most young people and their parents do not know how to find support if they are involved in self-harm. Despite a dramatic increase in the number of teenager self-harming over the last ten years, three quarters of young people do not know who to talk to about the issue, while a third of parents say they would not seek professional help if their child was self-harming.
These are the finding of new research conducted by global pharmaceutical and health marketing company Cello, in partnership with YoungMinds, the UK young person’s mental health charity.
The study, talking self-harm, also reports that nearly half of GPs feel that they don’t understand young people who self-harm, while two thirds of teachers don’t know what to say to young self-harmers.
Most parents (78 per cent) are afraid to provide the necessary support when confronted with the problem, despite believing that there needs to be more discussion about self-harm.
The study integrated the results of advanced qualitative and social media research with a quantitative sample of 2,500 parents, teachers, GPs and young people.
“This report should set alarm bells ringing about how we as a society support young people who turn to self-harm”, says Lucie Russell of YoungMinds. “More and more young people are self-harming as a coping mechanism and parents and professionals are very frightened about how to respond.”
In response to the report’s findings, the charity has put together a set of recommendations for parents, teachers, peers and health professionals on how to best identify and support at-risk and self-harming teens.
The full report is available at:
www.cellogroup.com/pdfs/talking_self_harm.pdf
