Self-harm & Suicidal Thoughts Dominating Issues in Young People

‘Self-harm and suicidal thoughts. Those are the dominating issues we’re seeing in young people on the Island’ says Jay Wight, one of the members of Isle Listen’s school team. ‘Yeah, we’re seeing a rise in self-harm’ adds fellow team member Sammy Quinn, ‘around 70% of our referrals have self-harmed in one way or another, usually either by cutting or restricting food or overeating.’

I’m sat in Isle Listen’s headquarters on a set of comfy sofas with the schools team. It’s made up of Jay, (a chap with an easy, ready smile, who, incidentally, is also a Gef 30 Under 30 winner) Sammy (a woman with kind eyes and a cool nose ring), and David Birtles (immediately friendly with the kind of beard any guy would aspire to). All have a light joviality about them, which quickly levels when the interview starts. They want to get across the hard stuff and think it’s important to not sugar-coat it.

Isle Listen works with both primary and secondary schools but this team primarily focuses on high school students. Schools put referrals into the charity, they then engage with staff, and signpost the student to an appropriate service. As well as this system, Isle Listen offers one-to-one support in schools and their own offices. For those of you who don’t know where to find them, the Isle Listen headquarters are in Castletown on Hope Street. I don’t know if that was a happy coincidence or the Isle Listen team made some deals especially to get the location. Either way, it’s impressive and wonderfully apt. The main building sits snugly close to Castletown Harbour, where the team goes for weekly sea dips, which are proven to be great for mental health. So, they really do practice what they preach. As well as their main building, the charity has its Douglas Wellbeing Centre, on East Drive in Strang.

Back to the schools team. Acknowledging the courage it takes young people to ask for support in the first place to then be told they have to wait before receiving help, Isle Listen’s team aims to fill the gap of young people getting assessed by CAMHS then getting lost in the ethos of a long waiting list due to a strain on resources. The charity has a two-tier system it works to:

• Tier One provides a lower-level service of intervention that deals with things like friendship issues and social anxieties.
• Tier Two consists of interpersonal counselling for young people in distress suffering from stress and depression or facing difficulties in relationships.

I asked what other ‘trends’ the team had seen in high school students besides suicidal thoughts and self-harm. ‘Body image and self-esteem are also prominent’ David replied. Something it could be argued that social media has a lot of answer for. In terms of Tier One cases, David told me they see a lot of kids with anxiety around friendship groups, particularly during the transition between primary school and high school. Not just in feeling stressed about making new friends but also guilty in feeling like they’re leaving old ones.

It’s difficult to say whether self-harm in students is happening more than in previous years, which would be bad, or if people are just more open about talking about it, which would be good or as good as can be under the circumstances. The stigma around speaking up about mental health seems to be breaking down, something the team has noticed and says is a silver lining in this process. However, this comes with its own challenges. Though the charity has seen progress in young people being more vocal about their mental health, they’ve faced opposition from some school professionals who were concerned that encouraging students to be more open about self-harm could lead to them self-harming.

‘It’s difficult to see self-harm be so prominent in young people in the Isle of Man’, Jay told me, ‘but it’s important we highlight just how prevalent the issue is.’ It wasn’t said in a way to finish on a sombre note, but more to show young people experiencing self harm that they’re not alone and to show that only when people are aware of how bad a problem is can real steps be taken to tackle it.

If you would like to help Isle Listen by either donating, fundraising, or volunteering, you can find more information at islelisten.im.