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By Mike King, executive director, I Am Hope Foundation
We keep telling ourselves the youth mental health crisis is happening at the pointy end. In
emergency departments. In suicide statistics. In waiting lists. It’s not. By the time a young person shows up there, we’ve already missed them. The real failure happens earlier. Quieter. Easier to ignore.
It’s the 8-year-old who starts to feel different and doesn’t know why. The 10-year-old who learns to keep things to themselves. The 12-year-old who starts to withdraw and no one notices. The 13-year-old being bullied who says nothing. The 14-year-old who begins to believe they’re not good enough. The 15-year-old trying to hold together anxiety, family stress, and a growing sense that something isn’t right.
Not one issue. A heap of them, one stacked on top of another. Our data shows young people are self-reporting an average of 4.3 issues when they come for help, not just one. They carry it for months. Sometimes years. By the time they reach counselling, they’re not coming in early. They’re already late.
Low self-worth. Anxiety. Isolation. Family pressure. Identity struggles. And sometimes more than they can carry. And when they finally arrive, it’s not mild. It’s not a rough week. It’s real distress. That’s what we should be paying attention to. Because it tells us something uncomfortable.
Young people aren’t getting help when problems start. They’re getting help when things have already become hard to manage. Then something changes. When they do get access to counselling, they improve. Not always instantly. Not perfectly. But enough to show the support works. Being listened to, understood, and given the right tools makes a difference.
So, the issue isn’t whether counselling works. It does. The issue is how long it takes for young people to get it.
Why are we waiting until things are bad before we step in? Why are we measuring success at the crisis end of the system instead of paying attention to what’s happening earlier?
If we’re serious about improving youth mental health, we need to shift the focus. Earlier access. Faster support. Meeting young people where they are, not where the system expects them to be. Because right now, we don’t have a lack of solutions. We have a delay in getting those solutions to the people who need them. And that delay is where the damage happens.
Under 25 and need someone to talk to? Book a FREE counsellor at
gumbootfriday.org.nz — no GP referral needed.
