Kooth sees Significantly Higher Increases in Suicidal Thoughts, Anxiety and Depression among BAME Young People, Compared to White Counterparts

""XenZone, the UK’s largest digital mental health provider, has today released new data from its Kooth service showing the major mental health impacts of Covid-19 on children and young people (CYP) from Black, Asian and minority ethnic (BAME) backgrounds.

Suicidal thoughts, self harm and anxiety all saw significantly higher increases than were seen among white CYP.

For depression, the data shows a 9.2% increase for BAME CYP, contrasting sharply with a 16.2% fall among their white counterparts.

Suicidal thoughts among BAME CYP increased by 26.6% on the same period last year; self harm has seen a 29.5% increase; anxiety/stress is up by 11%. Among white CYP, increases in these presenting issues are being seen, but at significantly lower levels (18.1%, 24.9% and 3% respectively).

According to counsellor and therapeutic content writer at XenZone, Aisha Gordon-Hiles, it is vital that barriers to understanding are minimised to ensure that those from different backgrounds feel understood:

“Many BAME children and young people feel barriers to cultural understanding are reduced when speaking to a practitioner from their community. They also feel they can talk about issues of race and culture freely, without fears of judgement and or racism in response.

“In addition to this, having BAME role models in the field of mental health is particularly important for CYP from BAME communities. This is because disclosures of mental health and wellbeing issues are less culturally appropriate in a lot of these communities.”"

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