In the wake of concerning reports from the Barbados Union of Teachers (BUT) that children and teenagers account for 40 per cent of calls to the national mental health hotline, leading local experts are calling for an urgent transition from digital support to physical “safe spaces.”
Both chief executive officer of Supreme Counselling for Personal Development, Shawn Clarke and behavioral scientist Professor Dwayne Devonish have cautioned that while the high volume of calls highlights a generation more willing to seek help than its predecessors, the current supply of professional resources is at risk of being overwhelmed.
University of the West Indies Cave Hill lecturer Professor Dwayne Devonish.
According to Clarke, the fact that nearly half of the hotline’s users are young people is a clear signal of a demographic in distress but also one that is self-aware.
He noted that the preference for a hotline often stems from the comfort of anonymity, which can be a double-edged sword.
”The concerns raised by the Barbados Union of Teachers that 40 per cent of our students are young people reaching out to the mental health hotline says to me that we have a group of our young people who want to talk, who recognises or realises for themselves that something is not right, that they are not functioning in the way they should function, and they’re reaching out for help.
“The thing about a hotline is that you are speaking to someone that you cannot see, so that adds another dimension to it for me. It kind of says to me, yes, that these young people want the help… but they don’t necessarily want to do a one-on-one, a face-to-face, with an actual person,” Clarke said.
He said while the hotline serves as a vital bridge, the ultimate goal must be to foster environments where students feel safe enough to seek in-person intervention.
Clarke stressed that the transition to physical safe spaces is essential for implementing long-term coping strategies.
”I am happy to hear that the young people are reaching out, but I think that we have as a society to go a step further and to make sure that we have the physical safe spaces and the adults that these young people can trust to come forward to have face-to-face conversations and face-to-face interventions to help them deal with their situations,” he added.
When questioned about the primary drivers behind these calls, Clarke pointed to a “myriad of challenges” ranging from academic pressure to the pervasive threat of violence in society. He highlighted that the developing brains of young people are particularly vulnerable to the atmospheric stress of modern-day Barbados.
”A lot of our young people are being bullied and they’re finding it difficult to deal with the situation, and a lot of young people could just be very much afraid of what is happening in our society today,” he explained.
“Every day there’s a different shooting, there’s another killing… these things can put pressure on adults, so you can imagine the kind of pressure that things of the sort can put on young impressionable minds and brains that are now developing.”
The impact of these stressors is felt most acutely in the classroom and Clarke warned that mental health struggles directly translate to academic decline, often manifesting as a lack of focus or sudden outbursts of anger.
”If a child has a situation happening at home, it is very possible that that child will zone out in the classroom. Our children turn to anger very quickly because anger, unfortunately, is the easiest and the fastest emotions that we resort to when things are not going our way.
“If you have a child who goes to school depressed, that child cannot focus on schoolwork. If you have a child who goes to school hungry… or leaving home and mommy’s ill, that child cannot necessarily concentrate,” Clarke pointed out.
Meanwhile, Devonish offered a complementary view, suggesting that the 40 per cent figure is not just a sign of a crisis, but a reflection of a “positive shift in awareness.” He argues that younger generations are successfully dismantling the taboos that once silenced their parents and grandparents.
”Younger people are more willing to reach out than older adults might have been in the past.
“The higher calls don’t only mean more problems… it also means that there’s a greater level of openness and help-seeking behaviors being expressed by our young people. I’m happy to see that too, because you could have seen that translated in other things, other types of maladaptive behaviors and destructive behaviors,” Devonish pointed out.
He credited national wellness policies and social media campaigns for making mental health a “more favorable and more attractive option.” He noted that the hotline’s success is a testament to its design, offering the “psychological safety” and “immediacy” that the modern student requires.
However, both experts agreed that the sheer volume of demand is exposing gaps in the current system.
Devonish warned of an “eventual outstripping of the resources” and issued an urgent call to ramp up the number of licensed professionals within the education system.
He also issued a stern caution against the use of unqualified “laypersons” or artificial intelligence as substitutes for professional counseling.
“We have to be careful that we don’t refer young people to people who are not qualified… because that can have very damaging effects,” Devonish maintained.
“We’ve seen that in other jurisdictions where people have taken their lives because of bad advice… even using AI. We’ve seen a few cases… where young people were tapping into support like Chat GPT and other AI tools, and it obviously was deleterious.”
Clarke, on the other hand, called for a “united team” approach, involving various professional organisations across the island to support schools and families.
”I think we have to realise that this is everybody’s problem now and it is no longer a school problem, a Ministry of Education problem, or a home problem,” Clarke stated.
“In order for us to fix this problem, it means that there must be a collective; we have to work together. The Ministry of Education can no longer try to take it on on their own… We must come together and work as one united team to save our young people.”
(RR)
