ALMOST one in four teenage girls in Eastbourne have been bullied in the past year, a survey has revealed.
The annual health report for East Sussex, published by NHS East Sussex Downs and Weald and NHS Hastings and Rother states that 24 per cent of 14 and 15-year-old girls had experienced bullying in the past year when surveyed in 2007.
Boys were scar
cely better off, with 22 per cent of those the same age having been bullied.
Both sexes had more bullying victims than the East Sussex average although just six per cent of girls and 14 per cent of boys said they had bullied someone else in the past year.
Student bullies are three times more likely to have been a victim of bullying themselves than non-bullies.
The report presents a worrying picture of school-age pupils, saying that in an average school of 1,000 pupils, one in 10 are likely to suffer from serious stress and one in 20 will experience severe depression.
In East Sussex in 2006/07, 346 young people attended an accident and emergency department because of self-harm — 64 of these children aged between 10 and 14.
Of these troubled young people, 95 were not passed on to health or social services support because they either had no GP, refused treatment or left the department before they could be treated.
In an effort to find and help those young people slipping through the net, NHS East Sussex Downs and Weald has promised to create a programme with the Mental Wellbeing Partnership Group to improve the mental health of children and young people, especially targeting those affected by divorce, who have been bullied at school or are carers.
victoria.allen@trbeckett.co.uk
