Group wants community support against suicide

Just the night before she spoke to a Legislative Assembly standing committee last month about suicide prevention, Sheila Levy had to help talk someone out of taking their own life.

Thankfully, the intervention was successful, said Levy, a guidance counsellor at Iqaluit’s Inukshuk High School who helped found the Kamatsiaqtut Help Line 19 years ago and has played various central volunteer roles with the organization ever since.

But the point, she told the Legislative Assembly’s standing committee on social wellness, is that people who are in crisis rarely seek out a government worker for help.

They turn first to someone in the community, whether it be a friend or family member, an elder, a member of their church or school, or even, as in this case, the help-line.

And those front-line community people, who are most likely to make a big difference, all need significant, continuous support and training, Levy said

Lori Idlout, executive director of the Isaksimagit Inuusirmi Katujjiqatigiit Embrace Life Council, told MLAs that the collaboration between EL, the Government of Nunavut and Nunavut Tunngavik Inc. in the Nunavut suicide prevention working group is a good way to address the youth suicide problem.

And so, she added, is its strong emphasis on supporting community workers.

“We have had too many people working alone,” she said.

Jack Hicks emphasized that youth suicide is definitely not part of traditional Inuit culture.

Hicks is also a member of the suicide prevention group, representing the GN’s Department of Executive and Intergovernmental Affairs.

According to the coroner’s archives, only one suicide was recorded during the 1960s in what is now Nunavut, Hicks told the standing committee.

But a graph provided by the working group shows a steady rise in suicides throughout the 1970s, 1980s and 1990s — with occasional major spike years like 1978 and 1986 — until about 1998.

There was another big spike in 2003, when Nunavut recorded its all-time high of 36 suicides. But generally, the numbers have continued high and steady, between 25 and 30 per year over the last decade.

And the overwhelming number of suicides occur in the 15-to-25 year age group, with males five to 10 times more likely to take their own lives.

The historical traumas of relocation, residential school, colonization, and of course, Nunavut’s overwhelming social deficits in education, housing and employment, all contribute to the number of suicides in the territory, the working group said.

“We’re not the only people going through this, and working on it,” Hicks added.

Around the world, more than a million people take their own lives every year, he said.

“The risk factors are the same across the world, although they may differ in degree,” he said, and just like with the H1N1 virus, there is a body of knowledge accumulating around the world on how to deal with suicide epidemics.

While Embrace Life’s positive messaging over the last five years continues to be important, suicide prevention group member Jack Hicks told the standing committee, there is another side the working group is trying to develop.

It includes, in addition to training for front-line community workers, a number of things the GN has to do:

• take a more focused and active approach to the issue, by establishing an “office of suicide prevention” to implement a suicide prevention strategy, provide web-based resources,
• oversee continuing research, and support other departments and agencies throughout the territory;
• give young people better coping skills, including peer counselling and suicide alertness and prevention training, to deal with the adversities of life and negative emotions;
• ensure adequate counselling and mental health services are available in all communities;
• provide stable, long-term funding for community organizations; and
• offer more information on suicide prevention to the general public, addressing issues like firearms safety, mental health and substance abuse.

The working group spent most of May and June running community consultations throughout the territory, Nunavut Tunngavik Inc.’s Natan Obed, also a member of the working group, told the standing committee.

All the information collected is being collated in a researchable computerized data base, he said, and during July and August the group will discuss what has been heard and use the information to refine the elements for a suicide prevention strategy.

But Iqaluit West MLA Paul Okalik, a member of the Legislative Committee, indicating a stack of reports on the table in front of him, said he was tired of reports.

“We have seen lots of reports done,”he said. “We know what the challenges are. We need an action plan.”

He noted that a lot of young people kill themselves when they are facing court dates, as well as after relationship breakups.

“The death penalty was outlawed in the last century,” he said, “but unfortunately, in our situation it’s still alive.

“Being charged with a crime shouldn’t be a death sentence for young people.”

He said he wanted to see more focused activity in dealing with this specific concern.

“The RCMP know who is waiting for court,” Okalik said. That information should be shared with social service agencies so they can pay special attention to people in that situation.”

Quttiktuq MLA Ron Elliot agreed with Okalik. “Over the years I feel like this has been studied to death,” he said.

But at bottom, members of both the working group and the standing committee seemed to agree, community support and individual initiative are what will make the biggest ongoing difference, and those are the aspects the government needs to work on strengthening.

“Both studies and our knowledge show that the more resources and support people have, the less likely they are to choose suicide,” Levy said in response to a comment by Nanulik MLA Johnny Ningeongan that human compassion and spiritual supports are essential.

We all need the support of others and spiritual resources, she said. She urged everyone to “be yourself, reach out to people.

“If you see someone unhappy, reach out to them. You can really make a difference.”

The Suicide Prevention Working Group’s discussion paper is available on the websites of both the GN (www.gov.nu.ca) and NTI (www.tunngavik.com.)

The number for the Kamatsiaqtut Help Line, which is open from 7 p.m. to midnight every day, is: 867-979-3333 or 1-800-265-3333.