Discussion keeps the world's turning.
This is Roundtable.
Hello everybody, welcome to Roundtable.
Coming to you from Beijing, I'm Hayoung.
Good to have you join us on a day's show.
How can we better address the mental health needs of our youth?
May has been designated as National Student Mental Wellness Publicity Month.
And now the conversation continues.
How can we keep the momentum going all year round?
And we share with you what's brought us joy this week was made as happy in Roundtable's
happy plays.
For today's program, I'm joined by Yushan in the studio and Josh Cotterell on the line.
First on a day's show.
Starting this year, the Ministry of Education has declared May as National Student Mental
Wellness Publicity Month.
And with May 25th as National University and High School Student Mental Wellness Day,
the month-long campaign aims to raise awareness and provide support for student mental health.
The 12355 Youth Service Platform has been a key player in this initiative.
So do tell what service does it provide.
This is how you mentioned earlier this May, a series of mental health promotional activities
among Chinese university students was held by the 12355 Youth Service Platform.
And as introduced by the shinhonnet.com, the 12355 Hotline, which is the initial platform
of the entire service mechanism, is a telephone hotline services launched by the Communist
Youth League of China, aka CYLC, which is the People's Organization of China for Youth
Between the Age of 14 to 28.
And so this hotline service was established ever since 2006 and was designed to support
the psychological well-being of young people all over China, providing like you mentioned,
psychological and also legal support, as well as guidance and assistance in handling various
mental health issues and legal matters.
And some data here that I felt quite impressing upon my reading was that as reported by China
Youth Daily, the 12355 platform currently operates a total of 115 hotlines all over China,
ensuring like quite extensive coverage and accessibility for young people nationwide
to actually reach out to the CYLC and get help from professional counselors, whether
it's like mental health, counseling or psychological counseling or legal affair consultations
and all that, they can just be there and support all of these young people all over China.
And the service maintained stable contact with over thousands, well, according to latest
data, 5000 legal and psychological experts providing professional consultations to more
than 600,000 people annually.
And in 2023 alone, the hotline had a total call answering rate of 92%, with 650,000 calls
answered and over 2,800 crisis intervention calls is handled.
So imagine like over 2,000 young people that's at a point of, you know, mental breakdown
and they just made a phone call and someone will be there just in time to intervene them
from doing something that can cause like a catastrophic result.
I think, yeah, just thinking about that, I'm quite impressed.
Yeah, I think that it is, I wouldn't say so impressive yet to be honest.
I think that there's a long way to go.
And this isn't just in China, but also around the world.
I think that we're really just at the very start of acknowledging this issue for what
it really is and the predominance of it and reducing stigma.
Still, the amount of stigma around mental health is insane to me, to be honest.
The fact that people are so nervous to talk about it at work, for example, never mind
while being at school, especially when you're becoming an adult and you have all of these
feelings and emotions and growing pains and, you know, to then come out and admit or
have even the language, I think that a lot of the time we even lack the ability to articulate
ourselves and explain or even understand what's going on with us.
It's so early on.
So I think it's fantastic what's happening, but I still think there's a long way to go.
That's a really very, very important point that you've raised there.
And Josh, I wonder if in the UK, let's say if you're a young person going to school,
is there a network of support that exists and I suppose these days getting a phone call
is possibly maybe one of the most reliable ways of reaching out for support.
And especially if you know that the person on the other end of the phone line is a professional
who has the medical knowledge and here what's kind of interesting is also there are some
legal experts who are taking up this volunteer work as well to answer questions.
I find that to be a little bit like unexpected because I suppose this is branded as psychological
help and mental wellness, but also there's a legal aspect which I think is important
because even for underaged people, sometimes the difficulties you are facing could involve
some intermingling with the law and it would be great to have professional knowledge and
consultation coming there.
There are several initiatives quite well established initiatives and support systems in the United
Kingdom for these issues.
I can give you a few examples.
Well, if we start with our national health service which is the free national health service
that exists in the United Kingdom, this does have several systems in place.
And many of them are relatively new which again illustrates how early on we are into this.
One of the plans which was launched in 2019, which is called the long term plan, this
commits to investing over 2 billion British pounds per year to improve mental health services.
So this was with a name to increase access to mental health support and the plan included
things like expanding community based mental health services with an emphasis on early intervention.
So a little bit vague from what I've done my research on here, but there is a lot of investment
into that.
Another thing is that there are things called MHSTs, mental health support teams and these
are established in schools and colleges across the UK.
But as of the end of last year, actually only 26% of pupils in England were covered by
this.
So about a quarter of students in England, which again, it's a good start, but it needs
to be every student I think.
I think going a bit deeper though, what is most important and what's also happening in
my own country are educational reforms.
Because I think one of the issues here is that yes, we have these phone lines and these
services, but a lot of the time, especially with younger adults or younger children,
they don't really know how to articulate themselves, right?
Or whether or anything is actually wrong in the first place, right?
You might only realise that later on in adulthood even.
For some people, we know that this, you can realise that something was wrong late into
your adulthood.
So expecting a child to be able to pick up the phone and talk to somebody, it's asking
quite a lot, I think.
So I think that where it starts, it has to be with educational reform policy and actually
in my own country, mental health education has been a mandatory part of the education system
in primary and secondary schools only since 2020.
So this includes teaching about mental health, health awareness, emotional well-being and
such, but again, it's so new that it's quite difficult to get a good understanding at
least from my research before this show about what's actually included in all of these
classes and how much training is given to those teachers teaching the course and stuff
like this.
But again, it's a good start.
I think Josh brings up a very good point about how on an educational level we can do more
just to inspire the younger generation to actually think about whether my mental health is
in a good status or what can I do before dialing.
Because sometimes maybe these young people, they don't even realise that they have maybe
some sort of mental issue or something that's troubling them, that they thought it's just
minor matters that doesn't need to pay attention to.
But actually it's going to cast long-term effect on them or stuff.
And I think back in the days, my now is in high school, which was like, wow, more than
10 years ago, around 10 years ago, that we had psychological class, which is compulsory
as part of the daily courses that we take.
But back then, like us as students, we didn't really pay so much attention to it.
And of course, there were exams arranged as well.
And the teacher would tell us about how to cope with our emotions and how to cope with
interpersonal relationships and not that.
But the thing is, a lot of us would just pay more attention to say mathematics or sciences
or history or all the other majors that will affect our performance.
We're really determined our future in a way because we were tested in Gaukau, the National
College Interest Examination that we just mentioned.
That actually just occurred last week, right?
So yeah, when it comes to psychological education, we didn't really pay as much as attention
as we should, I think, back 10 years ago when I was attending school.
But I think there are much bigger progress made in recent years because I've been spoken
to a lot of my college graduate classmates who had been back to school to study a second
major or second master degree just on psychology because they've been hearing that there are
jobs offered in school, hiring psychological teacher or someone just having an office
for psychological or mental health consultation inside public schools here in, well, engaging
in the case for my friends is engaging, but I believe it's in other parts of China as
well.
So yeah, we see changes, well, slowly moving on, but yeah, there's more to expect in
the future, I would assume.
Yeah, even I'm a bit older than you, but back in my day, I remember there was,
a psychological counselor in my middle school as well.
And she had this oddly bubbly personality for a Chinese person.
And it was great having her, but when you've got hundreds of students, if not maybe a thousand
students in one school year, I mean, and I didn't necessarily see people keeping her
that busy.
So a lot of the times I admit that we're at almost the nesting stage of mental health
and psychological knowledge, popularization stage, but to really make these people useful
for those in need, I think still takes some effort.
And we're looking at different promotional activities that are taking place, which could
be useful, and I wonder how do you see them being carried out?
And are they becoming useful for people?
I think one major event that we just mentioned earlier is, well, this may, well, between
mate the 12th to the 25th, that platform we've been discussing, the one, two, three, five,
five platform, they initiated something called a mobile service desk campaign.
And they actually brought mental health service providing events to over 15 universities
in 11 different Chinese cities.
So that means that some well organized events are actually infiltrating inside the universities
to bring in some new energy of sort and bringing in the collaboration from different social
departments or even hospitals in some cases to collaborate with the university and the
already existing psychological department inside the universities to, you know, just bringing
some fun and appealing activities to inspire the students to maybe do some self reflections
in some cases.
And in some other cases, just for providing lectures so that young people know that, yeah,
it's very important for them to be aware of their mental health and really be mindful
about them, think about it.
So see, I find that to be really difficult.
I think with mental health, and this is not just for young people, this is for anyone.
Most of us adopt the strategy that is if ain't broken, don't fix it.
And if ain't broken, we often don't realize that, oh, something's wrong, you know, is
when you have these sleepless nights, when it's difficult to eat, when you're feeling
really down, bleak, and a lack of energy for some time.
And that's when you realize maybe something's not right here.
And I think having the awareness that it's a strength, not a weakness in asking for help
and knowing where to look for help.
And also when this help is certified, is qualified, and it's not some dodgy person that's
prying on you, I think all of this is really important.
And for a young person, also like if you're thinking about like teenagers or maybe college
students who are young adults and your body is still developing, and there are so many
hormones that are running through your body, and part of this fluctuation of the mind
is just you being a young person in your formative years and still trying to figure out who
you are.
And part of it is absolutely normal, despite all this storm that's going on in your head,
but that's normal.
There's that.
But also on the other hand, there could be some mental health issues that are plaguing
the mind.
And increasingly we're seeing more reports about this among really young children, teenagers,
and young people.
So yeah, I think this is a delicate matter.
And also it's becoming more and more urgent and privy to the general public about the
effect and sometimes the detrimental effect of so many mental health issues without taking
care of it maybe a bit earlier on.
So Josh, I see you nodding, and I want to know the parts that you agree with me and the
parts that you don't.
Well, I don't think there's anything that I particularly disagree with you on there.
I think that you brought up an important point about the complexity of the issue, especially
given the early intervention, is so important for any disease and mental health as well.
Because of course the longer that it goes untreated or unacknowledged, the higher risk it
can be to the individual, right?
But unfortunately, especially for young people, a lot of early symptoms of mental health
can be very easily overlooked or dismissed, right, as just adolescent behavior or not being
able to fit into the school system very well or being undisciplined or something like
this.
But and this is really complicated.
I don't have an answer for this.
I guess that the only answer I could give for it is that you need to have more trained
professionals in that building and maybe we need to re-evaluate how what school is and
what service it should provide.
And I think that it would be really unfair to put all of this weight on the teachers who
are already in most countries and most systems overloaded and underpaid in my opinion and
then to have them also, you know, expect them also to be able to identify all of these
signs and basically act like a medical professional.
That's just not reasonable at all.
So what's the solution to this?
Well, I guess that simply it would be to have a medical professional available in the
building regularly at least or something like this.
But how do we pay for that?
That's another conversation, right?
And I think also these, again, we must acknowledge that when it comes to mental health or even on
an even broader scale, right, the field of psychology, this is a very new subject and we're
just dipping our toes into it as a society, really, right, all over the world.
We don't yet really understand it and many of these issues do crossover and when it comes
to things like depression and anxiety and then maybe something more serious like schizophrenia
or bipolar, these things often cross over and we yet to truly understand all of them.
So it's very complex and I think that we need more professionals to help us deal with
this in these arenas.
And apart from professionals and teachers, I think another St. Party around the children
that might come into handy when it comes to the time that's to support them and provide
help is the parents because, you know, the parents, they are the closiest to their
children, well, supposedly, and they are the first hand observer of some of the changes
that the children or the teenager or the young adult might be going through and they should
be the first to spot it, but instead in the past period, parents have been not paying
attention if not neglecting on the fact that they don't know themselves.
Yeah, they should be there and be the support in so many ways, but yeah, like you said,
so young, they didn't grow up in such an environment to stay aware of the fact that, you
know, mental health matters so that they things, I feed you well, address you up.
Well, you have all the sources you need to live a good life, to go to school, to just
be a quote unquote normal person.
So what is there to trouble you to, you know, have such thing as mental health or stuff
like that?
You know, I hear that from my family all the time.
But yeah, I think nowadays, as, you know, many mainstream journals or media is trying
to promote mental health, especially among, you know, the parents of a very young generation,
like pupils, nowadays who are, you know, crowding up in hospitals, psychological, you
know, departments trying to seek help, you know, a lot of the parents are being awoken
to the fact that, yeah, this matters.
And sometimes it's through pain that people have to think about this.
And when you look at previous generations, there are people who've been through some
very traumatic events.
And back then, there was simply not this knowledge or there wasn't even the study of mental
health or psychology.
So those folks grew up anyway.
And then when they're looking at their offspring and it's almost like, it's like what you
said, you shan, they think that they've provided everything for you.
And you don't even need to do housework, son or daughter.
All you need to do is study and be well.
And what else do you expect?
So now we're seeing that it's almost inevitable.
If you've followed the reports of, you know, growing rates of all kinds of psychological
issues, as well as some tragic suicides that happen.
So increasingly people have been given a kick in the rear end and inevitably feel that
we got to open our eyes to this.
But not everybody agrees.
So it's important to talk about it, I suppose.
And there are still swaths of people, maybe mostly from an older generation, maybe, who
don't even think that psychological issues are health conditions.
They think that, oh, there's just something going on in your mind and you're stuck in
a mental rut for a little while.
And you'll be okay after some time.
Just sleep it off.
And you'll be okay.
But unfortunately, it's so much more complex than that.
And then the detrimental effects could lead to sometimes death and a very unhappy life.
And that could, well, result to other things as well.
So I also want to circle back to an important point that Josh mentioned about early intervention.
And I think, you know, preventative efforts as well as early intervention are truly crucial
to all health issues.
And I do think that parents have a huge role to play here.
They are the primary caregivers, the first teachers for their children and your mental
health and parenting style profoundly impact the whole environment and a child's emotional
and psychological development.
And I've read this journal that argued from this a psychoanalyst from the US who said that
parents must be vigilant about their children's emotional well-being as mental health issues
and children are often the result of misguided, neglectful or abusive parental relationships
and educating parents themselves with mental health issues, encouraging open communications,
helping develop coping mechanisms and seeking professional help with needed and being patient
are very key to parental responsibilities.
And that sounds like a lot, but I think it's important for, well, see parents, now there's
another thing one should possibly think about before having kids.
Okay, maybe this is just how I think actually.
So there's definitely a huge part that since we're talking about underaged people, young
people, then parents need to take up this role no matter you like it or not, but this
is kind of the reality.
Yeah.
Yeah, I think that you bring up some good points especially with generational differences
and one thing though that we have to acknowledge that truly is different is the technological
revolution and then also things like social media.
And I think the attitudes towards mental health can definitely vary significantly across generations
and also across cultures, but social media really has presented us with a different environment.
And I think that while social media can also provide support with help lines and stuff,
you can also really contribute to mental health issues.
I personally think that it has and will continue to contribute significantly to mental health
issues for many reasons that we've actually discussed before on the show.
And there's a lot of research to support this.
So I think that, yeah, when it comes to the issue, we mentioned we have to acknowledge
that young people are living in a very different mental health environment than any of us were
sort of 20, 30 years ago.
And there is a mini program embedded in WeChat, the messaging app, very popular here in
China called Tsingting E-Jent, which also provides 24 hour around the clock consultation, even
if there's not a person immediately at the other end, at least you can text and that
text message will be answered.
So there's still so much that needs to be done here, but promise me, you'll always remember
you are braver than you believe, stronger than you seem, and smarter than you think.
And no act of kindness, no matter how small, is ever wasted.
So be kind to people around you.
Everybody's fighting about all, you know nothing about.
