CARPHA says youths in silent state of trauma from crime

…as social media fuelling youth violence crisis

Caribbean Public Health Agency’s (CARPHA) Behavioural Specialist, Dr Heather Armstrong, painted a sobering picture of the mental toll that crime is taking on young people, during a question-and-answer session at CARPHA’s 69th Annual Health Research Conference held May,7, 2025.
According to a news report in Barbados Today, the CARPHA expert warned that many of the region’s youths are enduring psychological trauma in silence, without always manifesting visible signs.
“If you are living in an environment where you’re constantly experiencing crime, you’re seeing people dying who you may know, or even knowing of youth who have died because of the crime and the violence, I’m sure then you would begin to feel fearful,” Armstrong said.
She said the result was that fear and detachment were becoming embedded in families, communities, and even the national consciousness.
“So they’re traumatised and unfortunately they may not have trusted avenues where they can express themselves,” she said, adding that distress among children and adolescents is not always visible.
“It may be something as simple as someone not wanting to go to school, or they may go to school, but then when they reach school they start to have somatic expressions such as vomiting and other things occur.”
In such an environment, Armstrong said, “the cry may be too silent for us to hear.” She said there was a pressing need for services that would help youths to communicate and access support.
Armstrong also agreed that the prevalence of crime was causing people to view it as normal.

When asked whether trauma has become normalised, particularly among the region’s youth, she said the evidence increasingly suggests so.
“The more we see things happen, the more we accept that it’s within the normal currents of life—it becomes a norm,” she explained. “We constantly see on social media videos of people being killed… So its come to a point where, yes, we see it as a norm. It’s a given—there will be crime.”
Meanwhile, Dr Lisa Indar, Executive Director of CARPHA, said the pervasive reach of digital platforms is undoubtedly increasingly shaping young minds and behaviours in troubling ways.
Social media is increasingly fuelling youth violence across the Caribbean, she warned, and described the trend as “a pressing public health issue”.
“Addressing the problem requires that realisation that nowadays kids get angry very quickly, but they have more accessibility to social media that sometimes [involves violence],” she said.
“When social media or every show [tells] you the way to relax is to drink, and it’s okay that if you’re angry to just lash out, and there are things that are promoting all of that, we have to recognise that this is what the young kids are exposed to.”
Dr Indar stressed that in order to combat digital and social media influence, which is breeding unhealthy behaviours, there is need for a holistic response to youth crime, starting with early intervention at home, supported by schools, religious institutions, and Government policies that foster healthy emotional wellbeing.
“So now our measures have to start at home. So the home, the church or any type of religion that speaks about how we manage that, because there’s too much violence happening in school and, the systems have to address that. Then at the Government levels we have to put measures in place to address that, putting a youth in jail may not be the best thing, but putting them into centres that allows them to address anger issues, anger management, address stress and address depressions, because sometimes you get angry because you’re depressed, you don’t know what’s the cause,” she explained.
Dr Indar joined fellow experts at the conference in calling for a wider and more thorough effort to combat mental health issues in wider society.
Among potential solutions to the mental health crisis, Armstrong said the use of digital tools, creative media, and peer-based interventions were valuable in reaching young people and holding their attention.
She said, however, that digital and community-based interventions must be rooted in a holistic, culturally grounded approach.
She advocated for embedding support through both social media and the use of everyday spaces. “Catch them in different settings… at home, in the community, at school, if they’re in a faith-based organisation or social groups. You want to embed in them: look, it is okay to not feel great, but there’s help,” the expert said.