# Investing in young people’s mental health before crisis hits

An episode of [Afternoon Drive with John Maytham](https://invisiblenetwork.ai/podcast/1212305258), 27 Oct 2026, 9:10.

Audio: https://p.podderapp.com/1951050295/traffic.omny.fm/d/clips/5dcefa8e-00a9-4595-8ce1-a4ab0080f142/e2113905-04ff-472c-9fff-a6cd00b63b20/71666510-c1d8-47d4-8fae-b4f000fc96f9/audio.mp3?utm_source=Podcast&in_playlist=cab9ce5d-42b6-4239-9177-a6cd00b6d1ff

John Maytham speaks to Simone Peinke, project lead of FETCH and co-author of an article on youth mental health, about the economic and social case for early intervention, the gaps in access to mental health support, and how South Africa can invest in prevention before young people reach crisis point. Presenter John Maytham is an actor and author-turned-talk radio veteran and seasoned journalist. His show serves a round-up of local and international news coupled with the latest in business, sport, traffic and weather. The host’s eclectic interests mean the program often surprises the audience with intriguing book reviews and inspiring interviews profiling artists. A daily highlight is Rapid Fire, just after 5:30pm. CapeTalk fans call in, to stump the presenter with their general knowledge questions. Another firm favourite is the humorous Thursday crossing with award-winning journalist Rebecca Davis, called “Plan B”. Thank you for listening to a podcast from Afternoon Drive with John Maytham Listen live on Primedia+ weekdays from 15:00 and 18:00 (SA Time) to Afternoon Drive with John Maytham broadcast on CapeTalk https://buff.ly/NnFM3Nk For more from the show go to https://buff.ly/BSFy4Cn or find all the catch-up podcasts here https://buff.ly/n8nWt4x Subscribe to the CapeTalk Daily and Weekly Newsletters https://buff.ly/sbvVZD5 Follow us on social media: CapeTalk on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/CapeTalk CapeTalk on TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@capetalk CapeTalk on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ CapeTalk on X: https://x.com/CapeTalk CapeTalk on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@CapeTalk567 See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

## Transcript

[0:00] Speaker 1: My next guest is Simone Banke, project leader of Fetch,
[0:04] Speaker 1: which is an organization that is working with youth potential
[0:11] Speaker 1: and mental health support. Simone, very, very good afternoon to you.
[0:16] Speaker 2: Hi, John. Afternoon.
[0:17] Speaker 1: Look, I mean, it would seem counterintuitive if given the
[0:23] Speaker 1: challenges and the difficulties and the crises that young people
[0:26] Speaker 1: face that there weren't a mental health issue amongst our
[0:30] Speaker 1: young people. But I can't put any statistics, any figures
[0:35] Speaker 1: to that. And I don't know whether the research has
[0:39] Speaker 1: been done to establish a true picture. Do we have
[0:42] Speaker 1: a clear picture of just how badly children, young people
[0:47] Speaker 1: are being affected by mental health issues in South Africa?
[0:50] Speaker 2: Yeah, thanks. Thanks, John. I mean, I think There is
[0:54] Speaker 2: an indication that there is a very significant issue when
[0:58] Speaker 2: it comes to mental health in young people. There was
[1:02] Speaker 2: recently a UNICEF U-Report poll that asked for young people
[1:08] Speaker 2: aged 15 to 24 to respond to questions on their
[1:11] Speaker 2: mental health needs on a public poll. And there they
[1:16] Speaker 2: had 63, 70% of young people said that they had
[1:21] Speaker 2: needed help with their mental well-being. We read there was
[1:25] Speaker 2: some research published recently by UCT that was looking at
[1:28] Speaker 2: young people aged 10 to 14 and found that one
[1:31] Speaker 2: in three young people showed possible symptoms of depression. One
[1:36] Speaker 2: in five showed possible symptoms of anxiety. And we know
[1:41] Speaker 2: organizations like WHO say that one in seven adolescents experience
[1:47] Speaker 2: a mental health condition. I think what makes the case
[1:50] Speaker 2: interesting incredibly important to consider in South Africa is the
[1:55] Speaker 2: conditions that young people are living in. So we know
[1:57] Speaker 2: that your chances of experiencing mental ill health are really
[2:02] Speaker 2: exacerbated by things like crime, poverty, lack of access to
[2:08] Speaker 2: employment opportunities. And it's those realities that we think put
[2:12] Speaker 2: a lot of young people in South Africa at risk
[2:15] Speaker 2: in particular.
[2:17] Speaker 1: You, along with a couple of colleagues, write that South
[2:20] Speaker 1: Africa needs to rethink how to invest in mental health.
[2:22] Speaker 1: And you make the point that preventing problems which are
[2:25] Speaker 1: beginning adolescent costs far less than treating someone further down
[2:29] Speaker 1: the line whose mental health has already deteriorated, which is
[2:34] Speaker 1: all well and good in principle, but … preventing those problems,
[2:40] Speaker 1: given the range of factors that cause those problems, is
[2:44] Speaker 1: a lot easier said than done. Because how do you
[2:48] Speaker 1: get rid of crime? How do you give people a
[2:50] Speaker 1: better chance of employment? And so on. So, I mean,
[2:55] Speaker 1: this is a whole of society thing. It's not about
[2:59] Speaker 1: administering questionnaires to 11-year-olds and picking up signs of depression.
[3:03] Speaker 2: Exactly. Absolutely. And I mean, a lot of the kind
[3:08] Speaker 2: of latest thinking in this field speaks to a multi-sectoral approach.
[3:12] Speaker 2: The fact that we need multiple sectors to be responding
[3:15] Speaker 2: to the issues that exacerbate mental ill health. But there
[3:19] Speaker 2: are also some protective factors that we can build within
[3:22] Speaker 2: young people. So at the level of the individual and
[3:25] Speaker 2: at the level of the community, there's work that can
[3:27] Speaker 2: be done to try and protect from some of the
[3:30] Speaker 2: risk factors you mentioned, like crime and poverty. And so
[3:33] Speaker 2: I think that's where our kind of case with this,
[3:37] Speaker 2: our latest kind of update has been that there is
[3:41] Speaker 2: an opportunity to prevent young people's mental health from escalating
[3:45] Speaker 2: to crisis point through interventions that have been proven to
[3:50] Speaker 2: be relatively inexpensive to implement and scalable. So there's examples
[3:57] Speaker 2: of interventions that have been delivered across the world. There's
[4:00] Speaker 2: a very... For example, there's been incredible work done by
[4:08] Speaker 2: Professor Vikram Patel, who's based at Harvard Medical School, but
[4:13] Speaker 2: has done some work in India looking at what they
[4:17] Speaker 2: call problem-solving therapy, which is a very easy approach to
[4:22] Speaker 2: deliver using non-expert community-based workers. And they've seen that just
[4:29] Speaker 2: delivering kind of between three and five sessions to young
[4:32] Speaker 2: people over the course of a year reduces depression and anxiety.
[4:38] Speaker 2: And there are many examples of these studies.
[4:41] Speaker 1: Just to come in on that one, because I'm sure
[4:45] Speaker 1: there's no shortage of people who would be willing to
[4:48] Speaker 1: be trained, lay people, not people with master's degrees in
[4:52] Speaker 1: clinical psychology or counseling, but lay people who would want
[4:56] Speaker 1: to do this and who would be trainable to do this.
[4:59] Speaker 2: Yes.
[5:00] Speaker 1: So that speaks to the not-so-resource-intensive part of it.
[5:06] Speaker 2: Completely. And I think they're already people interfacing with young
[5:10] Speaker 2: people all the time in existing pathways. So in the
[5:12] Speaker 2: education system, in health care, in education, And so there
[5:16] Speaker 2: are opportunities to build the capacity of existing resources to
[5:22] Speaker 2: deliver this kind of prevention approach. Importantly, we're not saying that,
[5:29] Speaker 2: for example, in the school setting, we're not saying that
[5:31] Speaker 2: teachers should now be counselors and providing this responsive care,
[5:35] Speaker 2: but they should be training on a preventative approach and, importantly,
[5:39] Speaker 2: an approach that enables those frontline practitioners to escalate when needed.
[5:44] Speaker 2: So when young people do require more intensive layers of support,
[5:47] Speaker 2: that they do have access to that, you know, through
[5:51] Speaker 2: the people that they already know and trust.
[5:53] Speaker 1: And do they have those escalating, escalatable opportunities in South Africa?
[6:00] Speaker 1: I mean, is there a counselling network around schools? Is
[6:04] Speaker 1: there a social network, social work network around schools? So you're, okay,
[6:11] Speaker 1: these in-place interventions using lay people are not working, we
[6:16] Speaker 1: know where to send this child. Do those places exist
[6:19] Speaker 1: or do those places have to be created and staffed
[6:22] Speaker 1: by the people who have to be employed in that
[6:25] Speaker 1: particular function?
[6:27] Speaker 2: I mean, those places do exist. The reality in South
[6:30] Speaker 2: Africa right now is they're completely oversubscribed and there's not enough.
[6:34] Speaker 2: So there's not enough resources at that level to But
[6:37] Speaker 2: we would argue that's because we currently aren't employing a
[6:40] Speaker 2: prevention approach. We are waiting until people hit crisis point.
[6:44] Speaker 2: And then the system is overwhelmed because there are just
[6:47] Speaker 2: simply too many people reaching that point. And so I
[6:51] Speaker 2: think there is room to build a more efficient system
[6:55] Speaker 2: of mental health care where we are intervening sooner and
[7:00] Speaker 2: reducing the numbers that need that kind of expert clinical care.
[7:06] Speaker 1: And so if this system were to be put in place,
[7:10] Speaker 1: whose responsibility would it be? A multi-portfolio? It would be health,
[7:16] Speaker 1: it would be education, it will be social development, or
[7:19] Speaker 1: would there be a lead actor that needs to be
[7:22] Speaker 1: persuaded that this is the way to go?
[7:24] Speaker 2: Absolutely. I mean, I think, you know, it would intuitively
[7:31] Speaker 2: seem obviously the Department of Health would be a driver
[7:34] Speaker 2: in this approach. But embedding these kinds of services in
[7:39] Speaker 2: all of those sectors that you've mentioned. So UNICEF has
[7:42] Speaker 2: put out a multi-sectorial operational framework for implementing mental health
[7:47] Speaker 2: and psychosocial support for children and adolescents with this exact approach,
[7:53] Speaker 2: with a kind of blueprint of how to do this
[7:55] Speaker 2: across different government sectors. so that it is, you know,
[8:00] Speaker 2: you're hoping for, while you're working toward improved mental health outcomes,
[8:05] Speaker 2: we know that we can only achieve those by delivering
[8:07] Speaker 2: these services across sectors, but also that there's benefit to
[8:11] Speaker 2: multiple sectors. So we know if young people feel well,
[8:15] Speaker 2: they can do well. They're more likely to access and
[8:18] Speaker 2: stay in labor market opportunities. They're less likely to commit crime,
[8:24] Speaker 2: to turn to substance abuse, They become better members of society.
[8:29] Speaker 2: And so the benefits and one of the big kind
[8:33] Speaker 2: of arguments for the investment in this type of support
[8:36] Speaker 2: is this idea of a triple dividend. So if you're
[8:38] Speaker 2: intervening young, when people are in adolescence, you're not only
[8:44] Speaker 2: realizing improved outcomes for when they're young, it's for when
[8:47] Speaker 2: they become an adult and for when they then have
[8:50] Speaker 2: their own children. You're experiencing a lifetime of and then
[8:55] Speaker 2: a next generation's worth of improved outcomes.
[8:58] Speaker 1: And there we have to leave it. Thank you very
[9:00] Speaker 1: much to Simone Peinke, project lead at FETCH, which is
[9:04] Speaker 1: a South African youth initiative focused on youth potential and
[9:08] Speaker 1: mental health support. Thank you very much.

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