[DigitalToday reporter Jin-ho Lee (이진호)] The government is pushing a comprehensive, cross-government plan to respond to suicides among teenagers. It will strengthen mental health support in and out of schools, management of harmful online information, and links to counseling and treatment across the full cycle.

The Education Ministry on Monday announced a cross-government plan to prevent suicides among teenagers. The steps are part of suicide-prevention measures by nine areas discussed at a Cabinet meeting in May.

Fifteen ministries and agencies are taking part, including the Education Ministry, the Office for Government Policy Coordination, the Ministry of Health and Welfare, the Ministry of Gender Equality and Family, the Ministry of the Interior and Safety, the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism, the Ministry of Science and ICT, the Ministry of Justice, the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport, the Korea Communications Commission, the Ministry of Food and Drug Safety, the National Data Policy Agency, the Personal Information Protection Commission, the National Police Agency and the National Fire Agency.

Over the past 10 years, the number of teen suicide deaths has continued to rise. As more teenagers visit hospitals for mental health issues, the need for a systematic government response has grown. The Education Ministry said teen suicide deaths increased to 396 in 2025 from 273 in 2016. It estimated the number of psychiatric patients aged 0 to 19 rose to 431,000 in 2025 from 274,000 in 2021.

The Education Ministry and other agencies drew up five strategies and 15 tasks for teen suicide prevention, including prevention, detection, intervention, recovery and building foundations. The goal is to cut the teen suicide rate, which stood at 8 per 100,000 people in 2024, to 6.5 by 2030 and 4.2 by 2035.

Strengthening prevention in and out of schools, responding to online harmful factors

At the prevention stage, the government will strengthen suicide-prevention education in schools, social and emotional education, and physical education, arts and culture education. Social and emotional education, currently taught in six cross-curricular sessions, will be expanded to 17 sessions. It will also strengthen training to improve parents' and teachers' ability to respond to students' mental health issues. Content on student mental health will be made mandatory in teacher qualification training courses. The government will also push to require related courses in teacher training institutions.

It will also expand responses to harmful online factors. The government will run digital overdependence prevention education and digital detox healing camps. For information that induces self-harm and suicide, it will pursue 24-hour monitoring using AI and request corrective action from platform companies.

In the process, the Ministry of Science and ICT, the Korea Communications Commission, the Personal Information Protection Commission and the National Data Policy Agency will take roles in managing online information and building a data-based response system. The Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism will support cultural and arts activities for teenagers and the distribution of guidelines for suicide scenes in video content.

The government will also review a ban on reporting teen suicide cases and provisions for penalties for violations. It also plans to distribute guidelines on suicide scenes in video content and strengthen sanctions for violations of review rules.

Expanding mental health education, supporting counseling and treatment for high-risk teenagers

At the detection stage, it will improve screening tests to find at-risk teenagers early. It will expand teachers and teen life guardians through so-called mental health CPR education. For out-of-school teenagers, it will expand one-stop services for isolated and withdrawn teenagers at out-of-school youth support centers. The number of related centers will increase to 14 in 2026 from 12 in 2025.

The government is also pursuing a plan to expand the scope of sharing information on suicide attempters obtained by police and fire authorities from existing suicide prevention centers and mental health welfare centers to city and provincial education offices. The aim is to strengthen crisis management by linking information secured by the National Police Agency and the National Fire Agency during on-site responses with education administrative agencies.

By the end of this year, it will build a system to detect crisis signs using AI, and review the possibility of linking mental health status tests with health checkups. The Ministry of Health and Welfare and the Ministry of Food and Drug Safety will participate in mental health support and linking to treatment, and in expanding medical foundations.

At the intervention stage, it will strengthen the school counseling base. It will promote installation of Wee Class counseling rooms and space restructuring, and upgrade functions of Wee Centers. It will push to place professional counseling staff, including professional counseling teachers, at all schools.

To strengthen counseling services outside schools, it will also review expanding staffing at youth counseling and welfare centers and introducing an integrated management system for 1388 phone counseling. To support treatment for at-risk teenagers, it will also push to expand emergency support teams, mental health vouchers, hospital-type Wee Centers, and youth-only wards and beds.

For at-risk students whose guardians are difficult to cooperate with, it will strengthen cooperation with local counseling and medical institutions so the emergency support system that has been in place since March this year is operated effectively. The Justice Ministry will support the protection of teenagers' rights and a review of the legal basis during the operation of related systems.

It will also strengthen regional cooperation systems. A tentatively named regional safety-net consultative body of teen life guardians will be formed, overseen by local government suicide prevention officers and with education offices taking a leading role. It will set up case management and a rapid response system for high-risk teenagers.

The Ministry of the Interior and Safety, the Ministry of Gender Equality and Family and the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport will also take on tasks by area, including building community safety nets, supporting at-risk families and teenagers, and managing suicide locations.

Recovery support, expanding the policy foundation, psychological autopsies to be fully implemented in 2027

At the recovery stage, it will support students who attempted self-harm or suicide in returning to school and readapting. The government will manage cases in an integrated manner centered on the regional safety-net consultative body. It will support prevention of reattempts through communication with guardians, including parents and homeroom teachers.

Schools where a student suicide occurs will be provided recovery programs, including peer bereavement education and activities to prevent teacher burnout. One-stop bereavement support services for families of teenagers who died by suicide will also be expanded.

It will also expand the finances and staffing of education administrative agencies to support student mental health. It will gradually expand the reflection of a student mental health support budget item in standard fiscal demand, targeting a level of 1 percent of the total local education subsidy. About 200 dedicated staff for student mental health support will be secured at education offices and education support offices. It will also seek to enact a law on improving student mental health and supporting emotional and behavioral issues, to clarify responsibilities of the state, local governments, families and schools, and provide a basis for student support and establishing specialized institutions.

From 2027, it will fully operate a psychological autopsy project for teenagers. The government plans to analyze digital information left by suicide victims and statistics on the deceased to reduce cases with unknown causes and use the results to establish evidence-based prevention measures.

It will also provide guidance on precautions against AI overdependence, considering increasing reliance on AI counseling among teenagers. The government plans to work with related agencies and the private sector to create an environment friendly to teen mental health, and to pursue campaigns to spread a culture of respect for life.

Education Minister Kyo-jin Choi (최교진) said, "Teen suicide is not a task that can be solved only through an individual's psychological and emotional stability or the efforts of the school community." He added, "We will support organic cooperation among members of society across all sectors, including local communities and the media, beyond families and schools."