Mental health problems are a fact of life for modern youngsters. In his BBC documentary, Changing the Game for Young Men, Gareth Southgate calls it “heartbreaking” to hear Taylor, a 20-year-old from Middlesbrough, describe his suicidal impulses after unemployment led to piercing feelings of worthlessness. “I just feel bad about life,” he said. “I thought, ‘I’m clearly not good enough, am I?’”
There’s no doubt that boys in the UK are in crisis, falling behind girls on almost every metric: education, income and jobs. Men aged 16-24 are much more likely to be unemployed than young women and are disproportionately likely to be the victims of violent crime (and perpetrators, though Southgate doesn’t go into that). The documentary also addresses the epidemic of fatherlessness.
Condensing a complex subject into an hour of TV entertainment is a tricky task, although Southgate is well equipped for the challenge. A declaration of interest: Southgate was one of my newspaper columnists many years ago, and I found him to be ethical, honest and sensitive. He brings these qualities to this documentary, which takes him to schools around Britain, HM Prison Leeds and to a café in Middlesbrough with Taylor and fellow struggling adolescents Naz and Rhys.
