Authors: Graeme Bond - Victorian Mental Illness Awareness Council
Year: 1994
Event: 1994 TheMHS Conference
Subject: Suicide Prevention, consumer, book of proceedings
Type of resource: Conference Presentations and Papers
ISBN: 0646251104
Abstract: It is now widely accepted, that Australia has one of the highest youth suicide rates in the developed world. It may even be the highest, not that this is a distinction we should be eager to claim.
In Victoria, each year, we loose somewhere around 150-160 young people between the ages of 15 and 24 to suicide. To put it another way, the equivalent of about 6 VCE classes! I believe these statistics, if anything, understate the dimensions of the problem. Old taboos remain and many families are eager to classify a death as accidental if there is the least doubt abut the circumstances.
It also appears that some young people, while not openly suicidal, will indulge in extreme risk taking behaviour that could easily result in death. How are such deaths to be classified when they occur?
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