Four Corners: Sept 10

An important Four Corners episode “There is No 3G in Heaven”, reported by Liz Jackson, looks at the often taboo subject of youth suicide. Should it be reported? How do you discuss it without triggering more?

One suicide is a tragedy. But what happens when a community is rocked by a series of suicides, one after another, all of them young people? Do the families mourn in private, fearful that expressing their grief publically could result in more deaths? Or does the community come together, so that individual families can tell their stories and in turn do something to combat the insidious face of depression and its consequences?

Until now the accepted wisdom has been to publicly downplay suicide but in speaking to families who’ve lost children, reporter Liz Jackson found that young people are in fact talking about suicide all the time on facebook. Social media has the potential to influence behaviour, for better or worse, and it’s now accepted that suicide prevention strategies need to deal with this. As one parent explains, it was only after the death of her child that she realised her daughter had been discussing her depression and suicidal thoughts on facebook. When calls and messages kept coming addressed to her deceased daughter the mother was forced to write:

“Can everyone please stop calling and messaging (my daughter). She doesn’t have her phone. I do. And by the way there is no 3G in heaven.”

This week, Four Corners tells the story of one community in a major Australian city where the threat of repeated suicides amongst young people became so overwhelming that families and community leaders, backed by mental health experts, held an old fashioned public meeting to allow the families and friends of the victims to tell their stories. It was a bold and controversial step but it was the only way they felt they could deal with the situation. In doing so the community hoped they could break the terrible silence and find a way to confront this silent enemy. You will be shocked by what you see.

Monday 10th September at 8.30pm on ABC1.