[Anchor]

In Jeju, the proportion of adolescents contemplating suicide is the highest in the country, and cases of emergency room visits due to self-harm and suicide attempts are also on the rise. However, counseling and treatment networks for children reaching out for help are far from sufficient.

JIBS reporter Kwon Min-ji investigates how severe the children's crisis has become and how well the local response systems are prepared.

[Reporter]

This is a Wee Class set up at a high school in the province.

It helps students grow in a healthy manner through emotional support, including psychological counseling.

Dozens of students received help from the Wee Class in just the last semester alone.

The reasons for requesting counseling vary, ranging from academics and peer relationships to family issues.

Over the past five years, a total of 16 children and adolescents have taken their own lives in Jeju.

The number of children and adolescents visiting emergency rooms in the Jeju region due to self-harm and suicide attempts has also shown an upward trend, averaging around 160 per year.

The percentage of adolescents in Jeju thinking about suicide stood at 13.8%, the highest nationwide.

In the Jeju Provincial Office of Education's student emotional and behavioral characteristics screening test last year, 1.5% of first-year middle school students and 2.9% of first-year high school students were classified as high-risk groups for suicide.

The proportion of high-risk students among first-year high schoolers increased compared to the previous year.

[Shin Yoon-kyung / Psychiatrist: Children come in starting from the early years of elementary school with depression, panic symptoms, and obsession. There is inherent sensitivity during childhood and adolescence, and due to societal pressures such as academic burden and peer pressure....]

While crisis indicators are worsening, the infrastructure for students to receive timely help remains inadequate.

Only 77% of schools in the province are equipped with a Wee Class, and some do not operate them during school breaks.

While there are around 240 basic mental health welfare centers nationwide, only four are specialized institutions dedicated exclusively to child and adolescent mental health.

There is not a single dedicated institution in Jeju.

Although the number of children asking for help is increasing, the counseling and treatment systems to accommodate them are still lacking.

There is an urgent need for a support network that can detect risk signals early and seamlessly connect school counseling to specialized treatment.

(Video Reported by Kang Myung-철 JIBS)

JIBS Kwon Min-ji