Nicholas Rupolo, Narrandera Argus
Narrandera mental health youth advocate Braden Lyons says breaking the stigma for males seeking aid for their mental health must be broken in order to reverse the impacts of COVID-19 on young people in the Riverina.
The comments come following Mission Australia’s Youth Survey showing attention to mental health and coping with stress was significant and important to young women more than young men.
Mission Australia surveyed over 20,000 people nationwide and 4,515 people aged 15-19 in NSW to find the biggest issues facing young people.
It found 52% of NSW females are extremely concerned about their mental health compared to just 25% of men while the percentage of young people in NSW who said they felt lonely all or most of the time was higher than the national average.
Mental health (52.3%), academic ability (43.4%) and COVID-19 (39.4%) were the top three barriers impacting on young people’s achievement of study or work goals nationwide.
Mr Lyons, who was a successful candidate in the recent Narrandera Shire Council election, believes the state and national results reflect ongoing issues in the Riverina and has called the mental health stigma in men “troubling”.
“Females are generally open to expressing how they are feeling and what they are struggling with whereas it’s very hard for males to open up about how they are feeling,” he told the Argus.
“If they are struggling they get seen as if they are weak, its just a mindset.
“If you talk to a lot of young men, it’s not just young men its men in general. It’s a problem that they don’t want to open up which can lead to more suicides and depression.
“That’s a major concern for me especially in the town where I come from where there have been too many suicides involving young men in this town.
“Males don’t like to do this (open up) and that’s troubling.”
Mr Lyons works at Narrandera High School and has seen first hand the impact of COVID-19 and lockdowns have had on young people in region.
The Mission Australia survey revealed the top three issues of personal concern for NSW young people were coping with stress (50.3%), mental health (44.1%) and school or study problems (39.7%).
However, double the amount of females compared to males say school or study problems are a major concern.
“I work at Narrandera High school and when we got locked down last term, working here you can see it has had a significant impact on students at the school,” he said.
“Coming back from out of lockdown their moods have gone down and their behaviour has gone down.
“A lot of the kids I’ve spoken to did not like being at home – they liked being at school where they can socialise with their peers.
“I feel like when having conversations with young people and directing them to the right people for support and help, being in this job you talk to students you work with them they open up to you about how they are feeling especially during lockdown and COVID-19.
“We can direct them to right support, if you are feeling lonely or have these thoughts this is where you can go and a list of places you can go. If they are feeling this way, they should just talk to people and open up.”
This article appeared in the Narrandera Argus, 16 December 2021.
