The Indigenous leader Tom Calma says he is “shocked” by a Mission Australia survey that found 10% of young Indigenous men and 5% of young Indigenous women rated their usual mental state as “very sad”, compared with just 1% of non-Indigenous people of the same age.
The national Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander youth report 2016, released on Thursday, asked 1,162 Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander teenagers aged 15 to 19 to rate their general happiness out of 10, where zero was “very sad” and five was “not happy”.
One in 10 young Indigenous men and one in 20 young Indigenous women rated their happiness as “zero”, compared with one in 100 non-Indigenous respondents.
Calma, a former Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander justice commissioner who is now chancellor of the University of Canberra, said he was “not easily shocked” but that Mission Australia’s report “rang a loud alarm”, particularly when coupled with high rates of Indigenous suicide.
The suicide rate among Indigenous people aged 15 to 24 is four times higher than for non-Indigenous people of the same age. In children under 14, the rate is nine times higher for Indigenous people than non-Indigenous people.
Calma said the report showed the need for a “fundamental shift” in policies and services aimed at Indigenous youth. “We must re-set the relationship so that Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people are genuinely and meaningfully engaged in policymaking,” he said in a foreword to the report.
“It is my hope, as these young people grow to become leaders in their culture, communities and nation that government policies and programs will be made with them and not for them.”
The survey was conducted in 2015 and had 18,727 respondents, of which 6.2% were Indigenous. About 3.5% of the Indigenous respondents said they spoke an Indigenous language at home.
Indigenous respondents were more likely to have an unstable home life, with 30% saying they had spent time away from home in the past three years because they felt they could not go back, compared with 15% of non-Indigenous respondents, and 36% saying they had left home more than 10 times in that period, compared with 25% of non-Indigenous respondents.
Indigenous respondents also showed higher levels of concern about gambling, drugs, discrimination, suicide and personal safety.
Catherine Yeomans, the chief executive of Mission Australia, said the results showed the need for an urgent rethink of how programs and services are delivered to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people. “Australia has a moral, social and economic duty to support all young people to reach their potential,” she said.
“And sadly, this report shows we are failing miserably, with too many Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander young people falling through the cracks. This is not a sustainable way for us to proceed as a nation and to me it suggests a divided society.”
But the survey also showed high levels of participation in education, with 84.3% of Indigenous respondents saying they were engaged in full-time education and 35.1% saying they planned to attend university. That was higher for young Indigenous women, with 44.8% saying they planned to go to university.
Half of all Indigenous respondents said they were confident of achieving their goals.
Yeomans said services should be calibrated to help young Indigenous people achieve. “Their ambitions are often thwarted by the lack of age and culturally appropriate mental health services, alcohol and drug services and homelessness services,” she said.
“These gaps in the service system are leaving Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander young people unsupported during the important time of transition to adulthood and should be urgently remedied.”