What should be done to permanently improve the mental health of young people? The Government regularly evokes its desire to act for mental health, decreed a great national cause of 2025. A topic mentioned this week, while a 14-year-old teenager killed a stabbing of a supervisor from his university in Nogent, in Haute-Marne.
At this stage, Chaumont prosecutor said on Wednesday, June 11 that the adolescent presents “without signs that evoke a possible mental disorder.” However, a few hours after the facts, the question arose given the seriousness of the author’s facts and youth. He was asked about this caseFrançois Bayrou had said again that he wanted to “work on the matter of the mental health of the youngest.”
You want, “to the first alert, that there may be an exam, diagnosis and treatment proposal, or at least take control of these young people”, without specifying how this measure could be implemented.
Disturbing indicators
For several years, the indicators alerted about the degraded mental health of young people in France. Made by Public Health France, a study showed that in 2021, 20.8% of 18-24-year-olds had experienced a depressed episode in the last 12 months, against 11.7% in 2017.
Of, The 2022 locked survey In the welfare of adolescents, he showed that 14% of university students and 15% of high school students presented “a significant risk of depression.” A quarter of high school students (24%) said they had suicidal thoughts in the last 12 months, girls are much more worried than boys (31%against 17%). The indicators also show a “clear degradation” compared to those measured in 2018.
In the field, professionals in the mental health sector confirm this deterioration. And displace ads little in a row of the effects of the government. Several organizations have mentioned their concrete ways of BFMTV.com to really improve the mental health of young people.
Front line establishments
Everyone supports the need to improve prevention. To do this, the school environment seems very clear: “Young people spend almost more time in school than at home, the school is a crucial place for them and does not go well,” said Bruno Falissard, president of the French Society of Psychiatry of the Child and the disciplines of adolescents and associates (Sfpead).
“Teachers see many students, as soon as there is one that is not right, they see it. Many of our consultations come from the teaching advice to parents. If they are better trained, they have more time, they have a card to play and the same for school medicine,” he adds.
Hence the need, so that the professor of public health at the University of Paris Saclay and the child psychiatrist, really invest in national education.
The National Union of Psychologists requests its part, which “increases to a large extent” the number of positions of national educational psychologists, a particular organism recruited by the competition.
“Today there are very few and when they exist, they are in great voters and do not have time to see all the students that would be,” Deplora Florent Simon, general secretary of the Union. There are approximately 4,400, according to a report by the General Inspection of Education, Sports and Research (IGESR) dating from March 2024. For more than 12 million schoolchildren, university and high school students.
Another possibility to improve prevention: training in signs that should alarm. This is the purpose of PSSM France (first aid in mental health), an association that offers mental health training to all citizens who wish to learn to help. Its director, Caroline Jeanpierre, explains that “approximately 4,000 rescuers within national education” (nurses, school doctors, CPE, teachers, etc.) have already followed the training of PSSM dedicated to the mental health of young people.
The association wants to deploy it in more schools, but also in structures that welcome young people, such as sports clubs. Before they can raise awareness about adolescents, “give them keys and teach them when they have to take care.”
The Ministry of Health revealed its plan this Wednesday, June 11 to improve the management of psychiatric disorders in France on Wednesday, June 11, with a part of young people. Among the announced measures, the establishment of the “reference points” 2025-2026 responsible for identifying “early” signs of mental health disorders.
A care that can wait months
Once these alerts are transmitted, there are already structures to take care of young people in mental health problems. The medicalopsychological centers (CMP) are public structures that welcome people in a situation of psychological suffering and take care of a multidisciplinary way, with psychiatrists, psychologists, social workers, psychomotricians … but face a significant demand and a lack of means.
In CMPPS, specialized in the management of children and adolescents, the waiting time before a first consultation was six months on average in 2022 and had doubled compared to 2010, according to a study by DREES. “What does that mean, when we are not doing well, to wait until months before they take care of us?” Indicate Florent Simon.
“Before going to Reinvent Systems, it would already be necessary to strengthen what exists,” added the general secretary of the National Union of Psychologists, which declares significant investments in CMP and CMPP.
Many devices but not the same access
To avoid the congestion of these centers, the SFPEAD suggests its part of a reorganization of the frontline circuits. “It is necessary that, below the CMP, there will be other access to attention, which is not organized in France. Currently, I mix school medicine, the general practitioner, ‘My psychic support” … depending on whether he lives in Paris, in the Creuse, whether he has money or not, he does not have the same access, “Deploresd de los Bruno Falisard.
Lucas Fugeard, president of Nightline France, an association that offers a night listening service for young people every night from 9 pm at 2:30 am, also believes that if it is important, in the field of mental health, “multiply the entrance doors.” But he acknowledges that “as a person in question, we can miss” in the face of the “multitude of existing devices.” Green numbers, associations, CMP, territorial mental health projects … difficult to know who to turn first. “There is really an urgency to unite the entire chain of mental health actors, from primary prevention to the social sector and care players,” alerts Lucas Fugeard, which requires a clear “map” of what exists.
The lack of children’s psychiatrists
And downstream, such as national education, the health system cannot respond to the deterioration of young people’s mental health, due to lack of sufficient means. “The number one problem today is the lack of caregivers. In psychiatry, we deal with psychotherapy, drugs and hospitalizations. However, there is a lack of doctors to do psychotherapy,” explains Bruno Falissard. In 2023, a report by the Court of Auditors, responsible for controlling public spending, stressed that the number of children’s psychiatrists in France decreased by 34% between 2010 and 2022.
All players in the sector indicate that the deterioration in the mental health of young people has many causes. “Covid-19 pandemia, armed conflicts, attacks, climate crises, school pressure, internet-related risks and the use of social networks …”, also lists France. “These are things that we have in our listening line,” confirms Lucas Fgeard by Nightline, who also quotes “students’ precariousness, food insecurity”, “in addition to the usual issues of romantic, family and academic stress.”
The president of the association emphasizes that “one can not deal with the consequences, without addressing mental health problems at the root.” “Therefore, it is important to act on precariousness, education, living conditions in general,” he argues.
Source: BFM TV
