Recommendations made by new NT youth suicide report

The Select Committee on Youth Suicides in the NT has tabled its report Gone too soon: a report into youth suicide in the Northern Territory.

The report finds that young people in the Northern Territory are three and a half times more likely to commit suicide than young people nationally. It also finds that Indigenous deaths account for 75% of all child suicides in the Northern Territory between 2007 and 2011.

'Clearly things need to change if we are to stop losing our young people at their own hands at such a high rate,' said committee chair, Marion Scrymgour.

The report identifies four areas of further action and makes 23 recommendations, including that:

• headspace centres be established at Katherine, Tennant Creek and Nhulunbuy
• a Litchfield Activity Hub be constructed as a 'one-stop' youth wellbeing facility in outer Darwin
• a high-level Suicide Prevention Coordination Committee be established
• comprehensive mapping of youth and community services be undertaken
• the Department of Education review school bullying and cyber-bullying policies 
• the Coroner's Office be resourced to provide grief counselling services and to maintain a Suicide Register.

The federal government has backed the recommendations made in the report. Speaking to journalists in Darwin, Indigenous Affairs Minister Jenny Macklin said 'We will make sure that we make a considered response and also make sure that the additional services that we put in place correspond to the recommendations in the report.'

Source: Select Committee on Youth Suicides in the Northern Territory; Sydney morning herald

Links

• View abstract: Gone too soon: a report into youth suicide in the Northern Territory: committee report
• View resource: Interview on ABC 7.30 Report (NT) with Professor Sven Silburn, Menzies School of Health Research, regarding rise in youth suicide
• View news item: Government pledges to act on Aboriginal youth suicide
• View media release: Select Committee - Tabling of report on youth suicides
• View website: Select Committee on Youth Suicides in the Northern Territory