Youth Suicide

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Recommended: Suicide and social media Social media has been one of the major causes of suicide, though introduction

1. Introduction:
This report aims to present the issue of whether Australia is doing enough to prevent youth suicide, by providing facts and opinions on the issue, as well as explaining how the issue has affected society. Furthermore, the report also identifies participants involved in the issue and how they react to the issue.
2. The Issue and Background To the Debate
It is recorded that every year, there are more than 2000 cases of self-destruction in Australia (Gillard 2013). Noticeably, in 2008, there were at least 281 Australians committed suicide, whose ages are only between fifteen to twenty-four (Suicide Prevention Australia 2014). The argument about whether Australia is doing enough to prevent youth suicide has arisen due to many concerns.
Recent programs and articles have reported on many youth suicidal cases in Australia since 2013. The two significant triggers are the tragic suicide of three high school students in Geelong, Victoria in the middle of 2009 (Best 2013), and the death of 15-year-old Tyler Cassidy which occurred in 2008 (Stark 2013). The debate also started because there is an obvious increase in youth suicide, of which a third of these youths are Aboriginal (Parke 2014), and because of the widespread discussion about suicide on social media (Best 2013). The debate is aiming to reduce the rate of Australia's cases of self-destruction by one-half in the next ten years (Donovan 2013).
3. The Social Significance of the Issue
The increase in youth suicide worries society in general. It raises concerns of whether a method should be applied when discussing about suicide (Best 2013), whether early mental health support will reduce the number of suicidal cases (Stark 2013), whether a debate on youth suicide sho...

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...elped in an old and inflexible environment instead of more modern and professional one (Stark 2013). More importantly, when dealing with people who have mental health problem and are at risk of suicide, mental health professionals surprisingly do not have the abilities or are not confident enough, reported Jack Heath (Donovan 2013). Finally, Craig Comrie also claimed that the youth suicide rate appeared to be increasing (Parke 2014), showing that Australia is not yet doing enough to reduce youth suicide.
6. Conclusion
All in all, the debate about whether Australia is doing enough to prevent youth suicide raises many questions and arguments. The debate is significant to the society, as it aims to help mental health professionals and the Government to develop better services to prevent and reduce the youth suicide rate by the next ten years.

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