Short Re Cap Advocacy into Action

There was a very productive meeting in our community regarding mental health. Keynote speakers included:
Karen Aujila, Advocate for Mental Health and Face of Mental Ilness for Bell Let's Talk

Bruce Marks, Program Co-ordinator Crisis Line

Cynthia Hogan, Coroner Service of BC

Jennifer Healy, daughter of mother who died by suicide

Kim Haines, RCMP Victim Services

Dammy Albach, Coordinator SAFER (Suicide Attempt Follow-up Education and Research)

Everyone was invited to participate in small group discussions with the facilitators.  The questions chosen were helpfull to work together to continue our advocacy for better mental health and suicide prevention services.  Small groups made brief reports back to the larger groups and the information from the discussion will be used in the advocacy work of the organizers and participants.

The Coroner Service  was of particular interest to my husband and daughter. Apparently Deborah's choice of ending her life is very unusual indeed for a young woman. We have been carefully instructed to not use the word "committed" but instead died by suicide. Also we must not use words like "successfull suicide" or "failed suicide". My husband has requested the report from the coroner via letter as soon as we got home.

The other exceptional speaker was dammy Albach, who is the Coordinator for SAFER. She recommends that a film on suicide prevention put on by CASP is a very important teaching tool that should be played all over, to drastically reduce the suicide statistics.  She has years of advocacy experience, and a suicide costs our community 1,000,000 apparently, so even if they save one life in a year, their $900,000 budget was worth it. Quibec has been successful in lowering the suicide rate by several techniques. One is by having a logo which states "Suicide is not an option, you are important to me!"

 The important task for us is to Tell, Ask, Listen, Keep Safe (or TALK) method of communication. I will forward the finished summary of our information gathering and present it in a future blog.