Mental Health Foundation chief executive Shaun Robinson.
Photo: RNZ / Cole Eastham-Farrelly
The “terrible” state of youth mental health in New Zealand – with more than one in four struggling – has prompted the Mental Health Foundation to start a petition, calling on the government to take urgent action.
Its chief executive Shaun Robinson said 25 percent of young people experienced significant mental health challenges, and rates had nearly doubled in the past six years.
“That’s more than any other age group, tens of thousands of families are struggling to get help, but compounding that, they have the worst access to services. And that trend is getting worse.”
Nearly one in five young people found it difficult to get mental health support, but successive governments had failed to fix the problem, Robinson said.
“We’ve been bringing this to the attention of officials and politicians for several years and getting virtually no response.
“In fact, we had a meeting with senior mental health officials in July and asked what they were doing to address the needs of young people, and they said there was no concerted plan of action around young people’s mental health, which frankly was astounding and not good enough.”
The Mental Health Foundation recommends:
- Improving specialist services
- Early interventions before young people reach crisis
- Promoting resilience and positive mental health in schools
- Addressing inequities
Last year, the government committed $24 million over four years to Mike King’s Gumboot Friday initiative (under the National – New Zealand First agreement) to roll out free counselling to young people.
Robinson said that was great as far as it went, but much more action was needed.
“There’s no single solution that’s somehow going to turn things around.
“We’ve got less than half the number of special mental health specialists for children and young people than is needed for our population.”
Community organisations and one-stop youth hubs could be expanded to target the multiple factors behind poor mental health.
“We need to look at employment, education, family safety, bullying, racism, the safety of the online environment and regulation to hold providers of social media platforms to account for the harm they are doing.
“If I was the Minister of Mental Health, if I was Matt Doocey, I would be calling the officials into my office when the stats are looking like this and saying ‘What are we doing about this? What is happening already? What can we do in the next six months? Give me some proposals to put to Cabinet to go into Budget 2026’, and start working on an action plan so we have a clear pathway forward to address what’s quite frankly a terrible situation that’s quite being ignored.”
Mental illness cost the country more than $20 billion in 2023, and most life-long mental health conditions started before the age of 25, he said.
“Seventy-five percent of young people say mental health is one of the biggest issues facing their generation – and I believe them.
“We are constantly being approached by families who have tragic stories of not being able to get support for their children and young people.
“Investing in youth mental health now is both the right thing to do, and the smart thing to do in the long-term.”
Mental Health Minister Matt Doocey has been approached for comment.
Sign up for Ngā Pitopito Kōrero, a daily newsletter curated by our editors and delivered straight to your inbox every weekday.