Steps taken to address youth mental health

The Central Committee of the Communist Youth League has offered professional psychological counseling services to young people across the nation to help ease day-today stress and guarantee sound physical and psychological development.

The committee started to offer telephone counseling from 2006, and began to operate a charitable WeChat mini-program for counseling from mid-May with over 2,000 psychologists registered so far.

In the mini-program, registered young people can reserve online consultations and legal services from professional psychologists and lawyers. The youth can also write down their concerns anonymously in the mini-program to release their stress.

Some professional suggestions on interpersonal relations, and emotional issues surrounding study and career plans are also provided.

The telephone hotline has proved popular among young people because they can share their concerns with volunteer telephone operators.

According to the committee, the nation has 122 call centers serving the hotline number, 12355, covering the entire Chinese mainland. The committee said that over 480,000 counseling services were provided on average to the youths each year with over 90 percent of the calls answered.

The committee said that most of the demands from young people are psychological counseling to solve social or study problems at school, or study assistance such as financial help. Legal advice, suggestions on relieving examination pressure and safety knowledge are also offered.

The psychological health of young people has attracted growing attention from central departments in the past few years, as those aged 14 to 25 face an increasing risk of depression from peer pressure, relationships and other factors.

According to a recent report by the Institute of Psychology of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, 14.8 percent of the surveyed 30,000 young people had depression risks, among whom 4 percent may have severe depression and 10.8 percent may have mild depression. They are in need of psychological counseling and intervention treatment so they can avoid developing serious symptoms.

Chen Zhiyan, a researcher from the institute, told news outlet ThePaper.cn that the CYL often invites experts from the psychology and law sectors to provide professional guidance on improving the hotline and mini-program by analyzing the major psychological issues youths face.

The CYL had nearly 73.6 million members from 4.09 million organizations including schools, companies, government bodies and social organizations by the end of last year, according to a recent release by the league.

It said that more than half — roughly 40.16 million — of the league's members are students, 6.58 million are company employees and 4.45 million are associated with government bodies. Young people over 14 and under 28 can apply to join the league, according to the Constitution of the Central Committee of the CYL.