By Miranda Brumwell

‘ASIST’ helps identify the risk of suicide

May 20, 2016 | 1:20 PM

There are around 3,500 suicides in Canada every year and for every death, there are an estimated 20 to 25 suicide attempts. These are the statistics staff at the Mamawetan Health Region hope to change by training community members in suicide intervention.

Executive Director David Watts said the pattern of self harm is a problem.

“What we tend to find is if there’s one youth suicide, it’s almost a domino effect where many people in the family, close friends in school, tend to follow suit and attempt some kind of self-harm,” he said.

He said the region could benefit from more psychiatric care, but staff at the region has been doing its best to train community members with the Applied Suicide Intervention Skills Training (ASIST) program.

“We are going around all our communities and trying to train anyone who works with youth with ASIST, (helping) recognize symptoms of someone at risk and then bringing them into the correct people that would be able to help them,” Watts said.

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Executive director for Prince Albert’s Mental Health Association, Doug Kinar, said the program is designed to help participants recognize those who are at risk, how to intervene to prevent a potential suicide and how to talk to that person.

“Most people don’t know what to say to somebody, they don’t want to say the wrong thing and the workshop gives you background information about suicide,” he said. “It gives you the confidence, hopefully, to talk to somebody and to know what to say when they are in crisis.”

In the P.A. office alone, the group trained over a thousand people in the last 10 years and Kinar feels a communication skills workshop, like ASIST, is important because it teaches the proper communication methods to aid in crisis.

“Many of us have crisis on a daily basis and during those crisis, if there’s somebody that can listen and talk to about what’s going on, then it’s going to help us resolve these crises before they get to the point of overwhelming and having thoughts of suicide,” Kinar said.

Miranda.brumwell@panow.com

On Twitter: @mlbrumwell