Campuswide efforts to stem dark tide include peer groups and social media confessions page
At Chinese University, students unload their heartaches and exam stress by “whispering” confessions into a tree hole, albeit a digital one on Facebook.
The premise for the Tree Hole social media page is simple. It calls on students from the university to “share what’s on their mind” anonymously and at any hour, just by filling out a form and clicking submit.
It is run by a student group and serves as a tool to forge dialogue on mental health, as well as being part of a campuswide effort to improve students’ psychological well-being. The move comes against a backdrop of rising suicide rates among students.
“The idea is that you can say anything into a tree hole,” says Simba Lee, a second-year student and one of the members of the peer counselling group that runs the page. “It keeps your secrets.”
But this tree hole speaks back.
Below the online submissions are replies of the uBuddies, university students like Lee who are trained as peer mental health counsellors.
The page has received hundreds of messages over the past year, especially in the weeks leading up to final exams, when stress runs high.
The posts are often confessions of loneliness, testimonies to falling into deep ruts of academic stress, or raw statements about what’s going on at home – a mother’s illness, a quarrel with a father – typed out for lack of a confidant or because it is just easier to offload this way.
The replies by uBuddies are sprinkled with emojis and encouragement, and take a similar structure: first, letting the writer know their story has been heard, and then, providing information on how to get in touch with professional counsellors in the school.
This year, the group received university funding to train an additional 20 members in peer counselling, on top of their annual crop of 50 recruits.
This effort is not unique to Chinese University. Mental health has become a hot topic in Hong Kong’s education system at various levels, as school officials – and students themselves – look to push back against rising rates of suicide and mental illness among the city’s youth.
Time to pay attention
There is real need for schools to pay attention, according to Paul Yip Siu-fai, founding director of the Centre for Suicide Research and Prevention at the University of Hong Kong (HKU), who says that the city has seen a rise in youth suicide rates, especially among students enrolled in academic programmes.
“When we are looking at the suicide rate for the past 10 years or so, in every age group the number has come down, except for young people aged 15 to 24,” Yip says.
Students are disproportionately pushing this figure up. The suicide rate for young people not enrolled in schools, who are typically considered the group with the higher risk, has remained stable in Hong Kong.
In contrast, suicide rates for full-time students increased 76 per cent between 2012 and 2016, according to the most recent official data collected by the centre.
Of the 75 youth suicides in 2016,29 were presumed to be full-time students.
“Usually if you are in school, it’s supposed to be a good thing – you have protection, and these students who go to university are the survivors of the academic system, the top percentile who can go to funded places in university,” Yip says.
