“We walk into classrooms and we see several empty seats. We go to our student division support department and we see students wearing long-sleeved clothing in the heat and you wondering what is that about, only to lift their shirt and to see them hiding all the cut marks on their hands.”

This startling statement was made yesterday by Dr Acolla Lewis-Cameron, dean of the Faculty of Social Sciences at The University of the West Indies (The UWI), while speaking about mental health challenges at The UWI.

According to Lewis-Cameron, mental health concerns among young people are on the rise in Trinidad and Tobago.