The Canadian Mental Health Association (CMHA) is offering a suicide safeTALK training on April 5.
The workshop trains participants in how to notice and respond to people who have thoughts of suicide and how to connect them with community resources.
"SafeTALK is important because it teaches anyone to be aware of the people around them," says Kathy Provost, a community mental health worker with CMHA and a safeTALK trainer.
"Awareness is the first important step to noticing if someone is having thoughts of suicide, whether at work, school, in the family or even members of organizations or sports teams. SafeTALK trains you to be comfortable and confident to ask someone if they are having thoughts of suicide, which is the first step to getting them to a trained professional who can assist them further."
The workshop will be held on April 5, from 9:30 a.m. to 1:30 p.m. The cost is $40 per individual or $25 for non profits. The workshop is open to anyone 15 or older.
"SafeTALK is designed to be very user friendly. In the training, we will be practicing effective methods for asking the sometimes difficult question, 'Are you having thoughts of suicide?' "
The training teaches people simply how to ask the question and then, if the answer is yes, how to connect people with the resources they need. It does this through an interactive training that also teaches the "TALK" steps: tell, ask, listen and keep safe.
"This is a great benefit for high-school students, as well as anyone in the community," says Provost.
Provost says that she's used the skills she learned from the safeTALK and ASIST (Applied Suicide Intervention Training, a step up from SafeTALK) more than once since she first took the training sessions a year ago.
"The more people in a community, town, city or province that take this training, as well as ASIST, the closer we come to lowering the statistics for death by suicide," she says.
Suicide kills about 500 people yearly in British Columbia and suicide rates more rural northern communities tend to be higher. Globally, suicide is the leading cause of death for 15 to 29 year olds.
"These are our neighbours, family members and co-workers. This number is too high. One is too high," says Provost.
To register, participants can call Provost at the CMHA at 250-395-4883 or email kathy.provost@cmha.bc.ca