Lauren Rafferty’s mum searches for answers after daughter’s suicide
Lauren Rafferty’s desperately heartbroken mother, Rachelle Owen is trying to find out what prompted her sweet 12-year-old daughter to commit suicide on Mother’s Day.
NSW
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Schoolgirl suicide victim Lauren Rafferty fell through the cracks of the education and health systems.
Now Lauren’s heartbroken mother, Rachelle Owen, 42, is trying to find out what prompted her sweet 12-year-old daughter to commit suicide on Mother’s Day.
Lauren was an intelligent girl who studied in a small class for gifted and talented students at the Riverina’s only academically selective school, Kooringal High School.
“She could have been a supermodel, brain surgeon, astronaut or artist,” Ms Owen said.
“She was smart but also funny as Robin Williams. But there’s no laughter in my house anymore.”
The last thing Ms Owen told her daughter was to take out her headphones so she could hear cars coming while out for a walk. Lauren never returned home.
With little more than a photocopy of Lauren’s suicide note, so redacted by police that it “reads like an Area 51 report”, and tearful conversations with her shell-shocked school friends, Ms Owen believes she is uncovering failings that may have cost her daughter’s life.
Ms Owen feels “sad for the world” that it will never witness the greatness Lauren possessed because, in her opinion, Wagga Wagga schools and mental health services did not adequately address her mental ill health.
She can’t help but feel like a “failure” of a mother for Lauren’s death, and only wished she hadn’t been shielded from the depths of Lauren’s likely depression.
One thing Ms Owen is certain of is the need for more school counsellors to free them up from crippling paperwork and allow them more time to build rapport with students in the playground.
She is the latest parent forced to bury a child to back The Sunday Telegraph’s campaign for at least one counsellor for every 500 students in NSW schools.
The NSW P&C Federation, NSW Teachers Federation and leading mental health experts all agree the current ratio of one counsellor to 759 students is putting children at risk.
Every high school will have both a full-time counsellor and a full-time student support officer – similar to a youth worker – by June 2023.
Ms Owen believes there should be a minimum of two trained counsellors at each school – one man and one woman – so one can be in the office while the other mixes with students.
Teachers first realised Lauren was suffering from mental ill health when she was in Grade 5 – while trying on a new school uniform she accidentally revealed scars on her skin from where she had been cutting herself.
At 11-and-a-half Lauren was turned away from early intervention mental health service headspace, which offers help to young people aged 12 to 25.
Headspace CEO Jason Trethowan said the organisation’s “no wrong door” should ensure all referrals of children younger than 12 are “safely and appropriately linked with a service”.
Her counsellor at Sturt Public School instead referred Lauren to a Wagga Wagga psychologist, who saw Lauren “four or five times”. Ms Owen claimed she was given assurances by the psychologist that Lauren was not a suicide risk.
The tween had a telepsychology session over the phone during Covid-19 but did not resonate with “a strange woman with a strange voice”.
Two weeks before Lauren’s death she attempted to speak to the school support officer, but the SSO was not at work that day.
Ms Owen is haunted by the thought if someone had followed up Lauren’s cry for help she may still be alive.
“There should be a video camera in the school hall to watch for hesitant children who approach the counsellors’ office but back out and walk away crying,” Ms Owen said.
“If not a camera then a letterbox or an SMS system – anything to stop children seeking help being missed and forgotten about.”
It was only after Lauren’s death that Ms Owen learned her daughter had been seeing the school counsellor but does still not know how often or for how long.
An education department spokesman said: “Students who need clinical support need to be supported beyond the school gate, and schools are working with their wellbeing teams to build stronger connections with parents and community services. The department works closely with national stakeholders such as the eSafety Commissioner and youth mental health organisation, headspace, to share information that will assist in a co-ordinated response to support students, schools, parents/carers and the school community.”
The spokesman said “school counsellors take seriously the obligation of confidentiality central to the practice of the profession of psychology” but Ms Owen believes parents should be told if their children younger than 16 are mentally unwell, unless the child believes it would jeopardise their safety.
Given the Kooringal High School counsellor Lauren was seeing was the same counsellor who helped her with self-harm in primary school, Ms Owen is stunned any relapse of her mental ill health did not constitute a “red flag” worth sharing with her.
“In primary school I knew about every counsellor interaction but boom – she hits high school and it’s no longer my business,” Ms Owen said.
“I know they need to protect children from abusive situations but blanket nondisclosure is bullshit. Lauren was only 12 years old.”
While she was not aware at the time, Ms Owen now believes Lauren may have attempted suicide three times in the lead-up to Mother’s Day. She had been watching for signs her daughter was self-harming again but was wary of driving her daughter away.
“She hid it well,” she said.
Had she known Lauren was undergoing counselling, Ms Owen said she would have made a more concerted effort to ensure she was getting the help she needed.
“I would have absorbed her pain a thousand times over,” Ms Owen said.
The grieving mother suspects Lauren’s friends likely knew how catastrophic Lauren’s condition was but were afraid to tell an adult against Lauren’s wishes.
Ms Owen implored teachers to teach students “the difference between a good secret and a bad secret” in the hope they speak out when they know a friend is suffering from
mental illness.
Donations towards Lauren’s funeral can be made at gofundme.com/f/love-light-for-lauren
SYSTEM FAILING THE VERY YOUNG
Distressed children can be waiting eight weeks just to see a mental health specialist and are often turned away from state mental health services.
Despite numerous state and federal inquiries and a spiralling national suicide rate, NSW kids continue to be failed by an inadequate system of care.
Sydney University Brain and Mind Centre policy co-director Professor Ian Hickie says kids in acute distress are often sent to emergency departments, which can often be a negative experience.
“If they go to an emergency department, they’re often told they don’t have a serious mental health problem,” he said.
“And we don’t have services at the state level to respond. And they’re typically sent home every weekday and every weekend to the care of their families with no specific plan to follow them up.”
In 2020 the state lost 30 kids under-18s to suicide or almost three a month.
Around the country, 3318 people suicided in 2019 up from 3138 in 2018 according to the ABS.
In NSW, the number of suspected suicide deaths dropped from 944 in 2019 to 897 in 2020.
On Saturday the federal government announced a further $26 million in funding to expand five headspace satellite services into full centres.
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