A youth mental health advocate is calling for more funding for mental health services after Canterbury police have revealed they were called out to an average of 11 attempted suicides per day in 2018.
Dame Sue Bagshaw wants to see the creation of a youth hub to combat the region's alarming rate, which has risen by 59 per cent in three years.
While Canterbury saw the highest numbers, increases were also reported in Northland, Waikato, and the central and Tasman districts. Nationwide, the figures show the number of suicide-related callouts jumped by 40 per cent since 2015.
Dame Sue said there are "tons of things going on" which contribute to Canterbury's startling figures, adding that it is "impossible to point to one thing".
"We know that a lot of things feed into people who attempt suicide or who self-harm, and there's many, many reasons," she said on TVNZ1's Breakfast this morning.
"In Canterbury, more especially, perhaps, we also have added reasons in terms of repetitive trauma from outside, if you'd like, rather than from perhaps one's own family sphere.
"We didn't have one earthquake, we had 500, then we had Port Hill fires, and then we had floods, and then we had Kaikōura, and then we had the shooting. I think it's one on top of the other, and then there's all of the stressors and strains of living in the modern world."
Those working in the field of mental health say they’re overstretched. (Source: Other)
She said while time and effort has been invested into rebuilding physical structures following national tragedies and disasters, not enough has been done to build up people's psychological or mental wellbeing.
"It was a pleasure to hear of the He Ara Oranga report saying that we need to have more investment into mental ill health, but we also need more investment in creating mental health, because we try and treat mental ill health … but we forget that we also have to actually create some mental health."
Dame Sue stressed the importance of "hav[ing] to give people a point to live".
"That means employment, it means decreasing poverty; it means giving some people, especially young people, a point, so that means having things to do, learning things, creativity – all those kinds of things that we really need to actually maintain and create mental health so that we can have that, if you like, ability, to fight against all the stuff that's happening around us," she said.
Dame Sue said she believes the Government and agencies need to work together in order to improve mental health, adding that we "need to change our politics".
"Our politics in the last 30 years has been around 'me first', success - success means getting lots of money - and that doesn't work for human beings. For me, mental health is created by good relationships and having that good, safe confidence that somebody respects you and you can respect them."
She said the development of a youth hub in Christchurch could help combat issues around mental health and suicide by encouraging the fostering of relationships within the community.
"What we're trying to do here is create a hub for young people, so we can have a place where people can create those relationships, whether it be a social worker or friend. But do that in a context where there's not just helping services but places to have fun, places to create, places to actually expand your mind so that you can overcome the politics and the demands of the modern life – and actually counteract spending most time on your device."
Dame Sue said young people in Canterbury are in desperate need of a safe space - following the upheaval caused by the stress of modern life and the disasters which hit the region in recent years - as well as "people there who will care for them, respect them and see their potential".
"They don’t believe in themselves anymore because what's the point? We've got to get that back into the point of life is actually great relationships with other people and actually create spaces where that can happen, and that connection with other people can happen."
Dame Sue said she would like to see politicians, organisations and people within the community working together for funding, rather than competing for it.
"There has to be either side, but at the same time, when it's important stuff like this, people's lives are at risk. We need to be doing things together and the hub is a place actually attempting to do that."
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