Nunavik school board calls for urgent, collective response to suicide

Makivik Corp. chairs a 2016 meeting with other Nunavik organizations to address a worrying trend of suicides in Nunavik that year. Kativik Ilisarniliriniq will host a multi-organization meeting Oct. 30 and 31 after a number of young Nunavimmiut have died by suicide so far this year. (PHOTO COURTESY OF MAKIVIK CORP)

Nunavik’s school board is calling for urgent, on-the-ground support for what it calls a suicide crisis in the region.

Kativik Ilisarniliriniq has convened a meeting of community and regional organizations to respond to the recent suicides of a number of young Nunavimmiut.

School board officials said the deaths have had a major impact on students, staff and families across the region.

“We’re saying: this is a crisis; it’s an emergency situation that we’re in,” said Harriet Keleutak, KI’s director general.

“We’re hoping to have a dialogue, to speak about the root causes of suicide because it’s affecting our students … and Nunavik society as a whole.”

Currently, the school board will fly in a crisis team to Nunavik communities as needed. But this week alone, that resource is stretched thin, as the school board responds to recent deaths in both Puvirnituq and Quaqtaq.

The goal of the upcoming meeting will be to come up with plans for a more comprehensive response to crises in Nunavik, Keleutak said—one where schools can rely on community support.

“We really want to build a system that can be run locally, and not only during crisis situations,” she said.

“We need to make children and youth understand that life is valuable and they can get help if they need it.”

Keleutak said the school board’s wish list includes an additional 21 support staff, including psycho-educators and child psychologists, who would be divided into three teams to serve Nunavik’s Ungava, Hudson and Hudson Strait coasts.

At least 27 organizations have said they’ll attend the meeting, set for Oct. 30 and Oct. 31 in Kuujjuaq, Keleutak said.

Following the region’s last major wave of suicides in early 2016, Nunavik leaders held a similar meeting, which produced the Nunavik Crisis Response Plan to address the elevated risk of suicide in the region’s 14 communities.

But the leaders who drafted it said the plan itself was informal and it remains unclear what actions have been implemented as a result.

For its part, the Nunavik Regional Board of Health and Social Services says its response to a recent cluster of suicides in Puvirnituq is based on recommendations first made by its mental health advisory committee in 2013.

Those priorities are considered the region’s suicide prevention strategy, though now a permanent Regional Suicide Prevention Committee is working to update that plan with support from Inuit Tapiriit Kanatami.

Prevention efforts are currently focused in Puvirnituq where, since the beginning of 2018, at least 10 residents have died from suicide, the youngest of them just 12 years old.

Though Nunavik organizations say the Quebec government has been responsive to the region’s need, the crisis is largely being dealt with through the Inuulitsivik health centre, which provides health and social services to Nunavimmiut along the Hudson coast.

“We are obviously really concerned by this situation,” said Fabien Pernet, the health board’s assistant executive director.

“It’s being managed within the region for now. We sent additional resources to Inuulitsivik [health centre]—they are based on the ground and that was their request.”

The health board has also provided them with a communications agent to get health and safety messaging out to the public.

If you are in need of support or have thoughts of suicide, there are a number of toll-free numbers you can call to speak to someone:

• Kamatsiaqtut Help Line 1-800-265-3333 (Inuktitut, English)

• Residential school crisis line 1-866-925-4419 (Inuktitut, English, French)

• Kids Help Phone 1-800-668-6868 or text 686868 (English, French)

• 1-866-APPELLE in Quebec (French)

• First Nations and Inuit Hope for Wellness Help Line 1-855-242-3310