One in three Pieta presentations are children

A new campaign by suicide prevention charity Pieta is explicitly aimed at dealing with mental health challenges in young people, writes Brian Byrne. No More Silence has been launched against a background of more than a third of those seeking help from Pieta being children.

The campaign calls on the public to sign Pieta’s No More Silence petition, at Pieta.ie/SpeakOut, to make suicide prevention a national priority, raise awareness of Pieta’s free services, and help fund its life-saving work.

Since 2017, the charity has seen the number of under-18s presenting with self-harm increase by almost a quarter. But within that group, the presentation rise is substantially more pronounced among children aged 12 to 14 — up to 75 per cent at the latter age. Self-harm is the strongest known risk factor for suicide.

Last year alone, 2,433 children and teenagers came to Pieta, receiving more than 17,800 hours of free therapy. 

Photographs use Policy — Privacy Policy