Aussie kids in crisis calling Kids Helpline every minute, shocking new statistics show

Calls to the Kids Helpline soared during the 2020 lockdown, with counsellors reporting hundreds of abused and suicidal children in SA.

Counsellors are calling police and ambulances 53 times a week to help suicidal or abused children as young as five.

Shocking new statistics from the national Kids Helpline show a child is calling for support every minute, with abuse notifications soaring by two-thirds as kids were harmed under the cover of COVID-19 lockdowns in 2020.

The number of “duty of care interventions’’ – where counsellors had to call police, ambulances or child-safety authorities to help children suffering abuse or attempting suicide – soared last year.

Counsellors made 2783 reports, with 37 per cent relating to a suicide attempt and 35 per cent involving child abuse.

They include 263 reports in South Australia.

People aged from five to 25 from across SA reached out to the helpline 9234 times last year, up 19 per cent compared with the previous year.

The helpline was founded 30 years ago today by Yourtown. The charity’s chief executive, Tracy Adams, said yesterday the pandemic had exacerbated mental health problems for some children at risk of suicide.

She said children were worried about their grandparents dying of COVID-19 or their parents losing work – with some reluctantly reporting sexual and physical abuse.

“Children love their parents and even when there are situations at home when they are not safe, children express that they don’t want their parents to get into trouble,’’ she said.

“For some of them, abuse is all they’ve ever known. They don’t know anything different.

“We often talk about stranger danger, but harm can be done by people you know.’’

In SA, about half of the calls were from people aged 13 to 18, followed by 19 to 25-year-olds (30 per cent) and five to 12-year-olds (22 per cent). About 70 per cent of young people seeking help were female.

Lockdowns have fuelled the crisis for children, with duty of care interventions soaring.

Kids Helpline project manager Leo Hede said many households had become “particularly tense’’ during lockdowns.

“Stressed families meant we heard from young people at risk of abuse from family members,’’ he said.

“Where schools and other community connections may have previously played a role supporting young people at risk of abuse, the extended lockdowns and home schooling may have led to an increase in young people seeking support from us.’’

Mr Hede said children were also affected by rolling media coverage of the pandemic, the high illness rates, the death tolls and “doom-scrolling” through their social-media feeds.

Kids Helpline fielded 176,000 calls and 2.1 million website visits from children and young people across the country last year, up 21 per cent from 2019. But one in three calls went unanswered, despite the helpline doubling the number of counsellors to 200 in the past year.

Mr Hede said young children in primary school were calling “with worries, fear, sadness, loss and grief’’.

Teenagers were anxious about school, employment and travel opportunities.

Kids Helpline 1800 55 1800

www.kidshelpline.com.au

Lifeline 13 11 14

www.lifeline.org.au

Originally published as Aussie kids in crisis calling Kids Helpline every minute, shocking new statistics show