Youth at the Breaking Point: Tel-jeunes’ Alarming Annual Report
Tel-jeunes has released its annual portrait of help-seeking requests, revealing a worrying deterioration in young people’s mental health. This report echoes the urgent message of its annual fundraising campaign, “Youth Are at the Breaking Point,” which highlights the critical nature of the situation.
The numbers in this report speak for themselves: between January and November 2025, requests for help to Tel-jeunes rose by 20% compared to the previous year, already reaching nearly 50,000 interventions (youth + parents combined). Projections indicate that this total could exceed 60,000 contacts by year-end, as the holiday season is traditionally one of the busiest times for Tel-jeunes’ support lines.
A Decline in Youth Mental Health, and Parents Feeling the Impact
The Tel-jeunes intervention team specializes in adolescence. Made up of professionals trained in social work, psychology, psychoeducation, or sexology, they support youth on a variety of topics such as relationships (friendships, family, romantic), school, substance use, and sexuality.
But this year, mental-health-related concerns account for 50% of all interventions, compared to 40% last year, confirming a troubling trend in which young people increasingly find themselves alone in facing their challenges.
Beyond the statistics, the complexity and severity of situations stand out. Self-harm, suicidal ideation—requiring a risk assessment in 1 out of 5 interventions—as well as generalized anxiety, depression, and social isolation are recurring themes.
Contacts related to issues of violence (bullying, physical, verbal, psychological, and sexual violence) are rising sharply, and there has been a 30% increase in contacts occurring after school hours.
It is worth noting that 80% of Tel-jeunes interventions take place in written form (chat and SMS): while preferred by teens, this mode of communication also presents challenges for the intervention team, who must show great empathy and patience to help young people open up through messages.
As for parents of teenagers, more than 10,000 have sought help from Tel-jeunes Parents, the service dedicated to them. Confronted with their children's declining mental health, parents report feeling helpless, worried, and powerless.
The Crucial Importance of a Safe Space for Listening and Daily Support
As Annie Papageorgiou, Executive Director of Tel-jeunes and its Foundation, emphasizes:
“The distress of the adolescents who contact us is growing, but so is their desire to find a safe space to talk about it. This is precisely why frontline professional services like Tel-jeunes are so essential.”
This sobering assessment highlights the reality at the heart of Tel-jeunes’ annual fundraising campaign, “Youth Are at the Breaking Point.” The campaign seeks to raise public awareness of the gravity of the issues intervention workers face daily and to gather the essential funds needed to maintain and enhance the organization’s services so they can continue to meet young people’s needs.
For Tel-jeunes, strengthening its capacity to listen and respond to this growing distress is more critical than ever. Every donation helps provide a free, confidential, and accessible space where every young person and every parent can find the support they need.
