Mental health concerns switch to young people in rural areas.

Mental health concerns switch to young people in rural areas. :

"'We only get this data every five to 10 years and the last one that was taken was in the late 90s which showed there was roughly one in four young women experiencing depression and one in six young men experienced depression,' he said."

I can remember reading a very sad report about the young rural people from that last investigation in the 90s. It discussed how many young people were suiciding because they felt they were a burden to their struggling parents and that they felt they would save moeny that way and how they didn't have food or bed sheets. I was upset because they were peopel in our state and we knew nothing about it in the city. We are very good at organising aid and support. We are very good at addressing emotional issues and dealing with communities in trouble. It would have been easy for us to organise the things people country people had needed. We could even have organised some sanity breaks for them in the city so they were not constantly confronting the pain of country living when the farms are not coping. This is one occasion where the meda could be a useful medium for getting information out for rallying support and infrmation for groups which need help. I think we do need new data. We need our farms and farmers and we can support and help them if we know what the picture is. We have often billeted country kids in town so they can come to city school and get a break ,a different kind of perspective and a chance to think about where they want to direct their lives. It helps the parents too because they can concentrate on the farm . We also need to wise up city dwellers to the opportunities in the country. It's that basic working together which is essential and we need to see the picture first.