Watchdog: Locked down young people ‘overwhelmed, anxious, isolated’

Mental health fallout from repeated lockdowns must be considered in decision making, Victorian watchdog says.

Victorian Commissioner for Children and Young People Liana Buchanan. Picture: Mark Stewart

Young peoples’ mental health is not a priority in pandemic decision making and data that shows the effect of Covid-19 restrictions on their psychological state should be made public, a Victorian watchdog says.

Commissioner for children and young people Liana Buchanan said she was a “fan of transparency”, amid news eight young women died by suicide in the seven months to July 31 and soaring numbers of teenagers are self-harming, ­battling suicidal thoughts and suffering eating disorders. “I think the more data that is made available about the impacts of Covid and the restrictions, the more informed we will all be about what we need to deal with,” Ms Buchanan said.

Authorities must find a way to keep young people at school in the event of Covid outbreaks, Victorian watchdog says.

Ms Buchanan said she could not see a “good” public policy basis to keep information in a confidential report from the Victorian Agency for Health Information – called Mental Health, Alcohol and Other Drug Treatment Services in Victoria – secret.

Young people have been hit hard during the pandemic, the confidential report showed.

There was a sharp increase in new eating disorder cases early this year, from a weekly average of 654 in 2020 to 878 in the six weeks to March 28, a 34 per cent jump. Ms Buchanan said she had not sought the VAHI data recently, but did last year. “I have been interested in … the increasing number of children, under 18-year-olds who are presenting to ED either with self harm or suicidal ideation,” she said. “I ultimately got the data myself. We saw that increased massively last year, the fact that we have seen another significant increase this year really underscores we have to start taking this seriously.

“And we have to think of some different approaches to our entire response to the pandemic.”

Asked if enough was being done for Victorian young people to cope with the fallout from enduring at least 200 days of lockdown, Ms Buchanan said: “No.”

“Authorities continue to grapple with a situation that is unprecedented. I also see that children, generally, are often fairly low on the priority list,” she said.

“We have been seeing the impact on children and young people for at least over a year and it’s time for that to change.”

Ms Buchanan said authorities still needed to consider how they could safely open schools, even though the infectiousness of the Delta variant and resulting higher proportion of young people who have contracted the virus would make it challenging.

“We need to look very hard at vaccinating teachers. (That) has to be a significant part of potentially taking the more nuanced approach to school closures during lockdown,” she said.

“There are questions around ventilation in schools and understanding what it might take for schools to be safer to open even when there is some community transmission.”

Young people felt “overwhelmed, isolated and anxious” as a result of the restrictions Ms Buchanan said.