More suicide prevention training on the way in Nunavut: Okalik

Paul Okalik, the minister now responsible for suicide prevention, said more Nunavummiut will be trained in ASIST suicide prevention in the coming months. (FILE PHOTO)

Before the current fiscal year ends on March 31, 2016, Nunavut Arctic College plans to deliver the ASIST suicide prevention program in nine communities across all three regions of the territory.

That’s according to Nunavut’s minister of suicide prevention, Paul Okalik, who responded Nov. 2 to questions about the program from South Baffin MLA David Joanasie in the Nunavut assembly in Iqaluit.

“Last year there were 130 people taught [the ASIST program], and this year we’re planning to have 12 courses in Nunavut,” Okalik said.

Okalik would not commit to tabling a schedule of upcoming ASIST, or Applied Suicide Intervention Skills Training, workshops as Joanasie had asked.

But Okalik did list a number of communities that will hold workshops between November and March 2016: Qikiqtarjuaq, Rankin Inlet, Kugluktuk, Cambridge Bay, Taloyoak, Chesterfield Inlet, Whale Cove and Hall Beach.

There are also three workshops scheduled to take place in Iqaluit by the end of March, 2016, ASIST coordinator Isabelle Dingemans told Nunatsiaq News.

On Oct. 22, Premier Peter Taptuna named Okalik as the minister in charge of the territory’s suicide prevention efforts.

And, in response to the September coroner’s inquest into Nunavut’s high suicide rates, Taptuna also declared suicide in Nunavut a “crisis.”

But an independent evaluation of the Nunavut government’s efforts to curb suicide rates since 2011 — entered into evidence at the suicide inquest — criticized the government’s funding of the ASIST program.

“I was very concerned to see that this report states, ‘there is an urgent need to train more people in ASIST,’” Joanasie said in the assembly Nov. 2.

“If ASIST is to survive and flourish in Nunavut, we’ll need more ASIST trainers. We’ll need to build a better network of trainers in all three regions.”

The shortage of people trained to deliver the ASIST program is due, in part, to a lack of long-term stable funding, Maureen Doherty, director of health and wellness programs at Arctic College, recently told Nunatsiaq News.

Doherty’s portfolio includes managing the administration of ASIST.

“We’d like to see a longer-term commitment to delivering the program. The stability of the funding would really increase our capacity to deliver the program. And a lot of that is the need for ASIST trainers,” Doherty said.

As a result of the current funding structure, provided by the department of health, the coordinator position for the ASIST program—held by Dingemans—is a contract position instead of a full-time permanent position, Doherty said.

“I would love to have a full-time coordinator,” she added.

Another issue with the current funding structure, Dingemans said, is that the financial agreement with the health department is usually not signed for months after the new fiscal year begins on April 1.

This year, for example, the agreement was signed at the end of July, Dingemans said, so the first workshop wasn’t organized organized until September.

“It would make a world of difference to have stable funding…There’s a lot of wasted time between March and September and it breaks the continuity. And also, you have to squeeze 12 workshops into a small amount of time.”

It also makes it more difficult to reschedule workshops that, for one reason or another, are cancelled or postponed, Dingemans said.

And with only seven people currently trained in Nunavut to deliver the ASIST program, the delay in singing the funding agreement adds to the already significant stress of the ASIST teachers.

“Burn out is always a concern,” Dingemans said.

Suicide researcher Jack Hicks, an ASIST teacher scheduled to hold workshops at Nunavut Sivuniksavut in Ottawa this month, said that in 2009, the year ASIST was launched, the Nunavut government committed to doing one workshop for ASIST teachers per year.

But the government has not pulled through on that promise, Hicks said, adding, “Never has there been fewer resources to deliver ASIST than today.”

Dingemans broke down the year-by-year number of new ASIST teachers:

• in 2009, 14 new teachers;

• in 2010, 29 new teachers;

• in 2011, no new teachers;

• in 2012, 12 new teachers;

• in 2013, 1 new teacher; and,

• since 2013, no new teachers.

As valuable as the ASIST program is — capable of saving lives that might otherwise be lost to suicide — Hicks said the Nunavut government must address the “inter-related basket of social issues,” that afflict the territory if it truly wants to impact long-term suicide rates.

Those issues, Hicks added, include alcoholism, drug abuse and mental illness.

“That means more houses, more jobs, more people graduating from schools. And hope. A society with more hope. That’s a tall order,” Hicks said.

If you or your community organization is interested in organizing a local ASIST workshop, you can contact Doherty or the ASIST coordinator Dingemans at Iqaluit’s campus of Arctic College at 867-979-7200.