The Sydney Morning Herald, “Northern Rivers in youth mental health crisis”, 20 March 2023, excerpt:
A soon-to-be-published resilience survey has found levels of depression and anxiety symptoms are now higher among Northern Rivers children and young people than the national average of earlier survey participants for some student groups.
Conducted almost six months after the February 2022 disaster, the survey was taken by 6611 school students, nearly 13 per cent of all young people aged between five and 19 in the region.
It found that almost one in three Northern Rivers primary students and more than one in three secondary students were at risk of depression and anxiety.
More than 40 per cent of primary students were at risk of trauma-related stress. For secondary students, it was almost 20 per cent.
Inundated, isolated, in despair: Floodwaters around Lismore’s St Carthage’s Cathedral and Trinity Catholic College.CREDIT:GETTY
Healthy North Coast, a not-for profit organisation delivering the Australian government's Primary Health Network program in the region, commissioned the research as the first step in its Resilient Kids initiative, funded by a $10 million grant from the National Emergency Management Agency.
Healthy North Coast chief executive Monika Wheeler said that the survey established a baseline which could help to measure the mental health and wellbeing of young people in the Northern Rivers over time.
She said young people reported generally feeling supported and connected within their schools and communities. However, the survey also highlighted areas to focus on in future.
"The Resilient Kids initiative will use local insights to design tailored mental health and wellbeing supports," she said.
"We know that successful recovery is based on understanding community context and is not a one-off event.
"It's multi-year, multi-layered, and our approach to supporting our young people might change over time as we see how they respond."
Tens of millions of federal and state dollars has been promised for mental health and wellbeing programs in the region's schools and wider community.
Safe haven hubs have opened across the region to provide free mental health support. Drop-ins are encouraged and there is no need for referrals or appointments. For young people, dedicated online and phone services also are available.
The difficulty is reaching those who won't, or can't, use these services.
Children's charities Unicef Australia and Royal Far West are rolling out a $4.5 million support program covering 30 state primary schools and preschools in the Northern Rivers and south-east Queensland.
Social workers, psychologists, speech pathologists and occupational therapists will enter school communities to help staff address learning delays in children.
Unicef Australia chief advocate for children Nicole Breeze said thousands of children will need intensive support, as the effects of the disaster can potentially remain hidden for years.
"Our first engagement in this space was after the Black Summer bushfires," she said. "With children the impact can stay hidden, it can take a year or two, sometimes three. The good news is that with the right support, at the right time, they can bounce back."
The plight of Northern Rivers children garnered international attention Last April when Prince William spoke online with Jeanette Wilkins, the principal of St Joseph's Primary School Woodburn, who told him the community had lost its school and "everything in it" and the mental health of the community had taken a major blow.
The school was underwater for eight days.
"We're two months down the track and nothing has changed, those 34 families are still displaced, so there's no certainty for those children," she told the prince.
"For us, the most important thing was to make contact with our families and our children, and as fast as possible to set up a school somewhere just to get the children back to some form of normality and start dealing with their trauma."
At Christmas, 29 families of students and staff at St Joseph's (more than half the students) were still living in some form of temporary housing such as a caravan, shed, shipping container or the shell of their flood-stripped home.
Ten Catholic schools in the Lismore diocese were directly affected by the floods, including St Joseph's. Three schools are inaccessible, and 1250 students are being taught in temporary facilities.
Morning tea and lunch are provided in some schools, as are new school uniforms and shoes, to help address absenteeism. A team of 30 counsellors is working in 23 schools, and community services provider Social Futures is operating in seven of the flood-hit schools to assist families in gaining to access additional mental health social and financial support.
Thirty-seven state facilities suffered significant damage, and five schools still operate away from their original site.
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