Last year, 22 young people were admitted to the Child and Adolescent Psychiatry Reference Unit (URPI) at Santa Catalina Hospital in Salt for suicide attempts. This is five more cases than the previous year. Behind each attempt lies immense suffering and despair, both for the young people at risk of suicide and for their families, who plead for more resources so that the authorities "don't let their children die" and provide more funding for the child and adolescent mental health care system. "When it comes to budget allocations, to making a serious commitment, it's always last in line. When a teenager is in crisis, a three-month wait for a psychologist in the public health system isn't just an administrative delay. It's an eternity that can have fatal consequences," laments journalist Sònia Cebrian, the mother of a child admitted to Santa Catalina Hospital in Salt for a suicide attempt. She was there for fifteen days and was discharged this Wednesday. "Healthcare and education professionals are overwhelmed and can't keep up with everything, and families are improvising stopgap measures that only allow them to stay afloat through struggle and isolation," Cebrian adds. The testimony of Sonia, as the mother of a teenager with a mental disorder and several suicide attempts, and that of Ingrid, as a young woman suffering this ordeal, exemplify the scale of a problem that carries a high emotional and financial cost for those who experience it and which, as Sonia says, "is needed." When the solution is a loan

Schools and institutes in Catalonia are increasingly recognizing that emotional education is as essential as academic learning. Mental and emotional well-being is the foundation for meaningful learning and the personal and social development of students. For this reason, the Department of Education is promoting various programs and resources that place emotional well-being at the heart of educational life, for both students and teachers.

In Catalonia, more than one million people live with some form of mental disorder. The figures call for action: almost one in four people over the age of fifteen report suffering from emotional distress, and among children—aged four to fourteen—7.4% acknowledge having some kind of mental health problem. These figures are part of a global reality. According to the World Health Organization (WHO), one in four people worldwide will experience a mental health problem at some point in their lives. These figures not only highlight the magnitude of the challenge but also directly call upon all of society: we must view mental health as a collective responsibility and act to reverse this trend. It is in this context that the National Mental Health Pact was born, an initiative of the Catalan government that aims to provide a comprehensive, coordinated, and transformative response to one of the major social and health challenges of our time. The agreement promotes a new way of understanding mental health: a cross-cutting approach that puts people at the center and integrates all areas—healthcare, education, social services, and community—with the goal of guaranteeing real and sustainable emotional well-being throughout life.

Supporting students beyond academic learning is now a shared priority for the Catalan university system. Universities are spaces of knowledge, but also of emotions, life challenges, and community life; therefore, more and more institutions are placing psychological and emotional well-being at the heart of their educational activities. All Catalan universities offer free and confidential psychological support services for students, providing emotional support, guidance, and brief intervention in situations of distress, stress, anxiety, or personal difficulties. These services, staffed by teams of professional psychologists, work in a coordinated manner to ensure a rapid and accessible response. In recent years, the Department of Research and Universities has promoted a review and strengthening of these services to ensure consistent, high-quality coverage throughout the university system.

Talking about what's happening to us isn't always easy, especially when it comes to emotions or situations that cause distress. But there are increasingly more spaces designed for children, teenagers, and young adults to express themselves, ask for help, and receive emotional support without fear or prejudice.

More and more studies and experts warn that suicide is more common among our youth. The data corroborate this: suicide has become one of the leading causes of death among young people between the ages of 15 and 29. Furthermore, almost 20% of adolescents have thought about suicide at some point in their lives, according to a report on mental health prepared by the Rey Juan Carlos University (URJC) in collaboration with the Open University of Catalonia (UOC). At the same time, according to another report promoted by IDIAPJGol, cases of self-harm among children and young people between the ages of 10 and 24 have experienced an alarming increase of 267% between 2013 and 2022.