Some 18,000 Israeli youths reported feelings of distress through ERAN’s (Emotional First Aid) hotline and internet support services throughout 2021, the association revealed ahead of World Children’s Day on Sunday.
ERAN said that, in the past 12 months, 12,000 Israeli children and teens reached out to the association through its internet support chat, while a further 6,000 called its emotional support hotline.
Some 5% of the calls made to ERAN were of a suicidal nature, it added.
“When children and adolescents do not receive adequate and appropriate support from adults in a way they can relate to, they will look for answers and examples from their peers, and from those who receive media attention. They will open new and hidden ways to communicate, develop, learn and survive,” Michal Lev Ari, director of ERAN’s internet service said.
“The new spaces created have advantages and disadvantages. One of the disadvantages is the increasing separation between children and adults. Those who manage to see the separation and this space as an advantage… perhaps they are the ones who will be able to represent and protect the children and the youth.”
“When children and youth do not receive adequate and appropriate support from adults in a way they can relate to, they will look for answers and examples from their peers, and from those who receive media attention. They will open new and hidden ways to communicate, develop, learn and survive.”
Michal Lev Ari, director of ERAN’s internet service
There has been a significant rise in mental health diagnoses and the use of psychiatric medicine among Israeli teenagers since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, according to a 2020 study by Maccabi Health and the KI Institute.
The study revealed a 55% rise in eating disorders, a 38% rise in diagnoses of depression and a 33% rise in anxiety disorders. At the same time, the rate of prescriptions for anti-psychotic drugs has risen by 28%.
Depression and anxiety doubled in children since COVID-19 broke out
COVID-19 caused a global mental health crisis among children and adolescents, according to a University of Calgary meta-analysis pooling the results of 29 studies from around the world among 80,879 youths during the COVID-19 pandemic.
The study found that depression and anxiety symptoms have doubled in children and adolescents worldwide since the start of the pandemic.
World Children’s Day was established by the United Nations in 1954 and has been marked every year on November 20 since 1990.
November 20 was picked to observe World Children’s Day due to it also being the date of the UN General Assembly’s adoption of the Declaration of the Rights of the Child in 1959. On the same date in 1989, the assembly also adopted the Convention on the Rights of the Child, according to the intergovernmental organization.
