The Canadian Association for Suicide Prevention (CASP) was founded and
incorporated in 1985 by a group of professionals who saw the need to provide
information and resources to communities to reduce the suicide rate and
minimize the harmful consequences of suicidal behaviour.
CASP’s Board of Directors with help from other
organizations and individuals has
worked hard to influence the implementation of a National Strategy for Suicide
Prevention in Canada for over 25 years.
One of its first steps was to prepare the CASP Blueprint for a National
Suicide Prevention Strategy released in 2007 to all government levels and revised
with a second Edition published in 2009. Many regions and countries have used
the Blueprint to create their own strategies. Canada remains one of the few
industrialized countries that has not implemented a suicide prevention
strategy.
With patience and persistence CASP has continued to find ways of
influencing change on a National level through presentations at Parliamentary
Committees, informing the development of the strategy to implement and monitor the
progress of Bill C300, a bill passed by Parliament in February, 2013 to create
a National Suicide Prevention Framework.
In the last two
years, CASP has partnered with the Mental Health Commission of Canada to create
The National Collaborative for Suicide Prevention. The
collective is comprised of social and health-based national organizations invested
in the promotion of mental health and well-being, the prevention of mental
illness and in building capacity to reduce the risk of suicide and bolster
resilience. Suicide prevention efforts
in Canada have been hampered by fragmentation. This newly formed body contributes
to the reduction of suicide risk and all the associated impacts through
collective action, information sharing and working cooperatively to build on
one another’s efforts and initiatives. It will include representation from
survivors of suicide loss, and suicide attempt survivors who have a vested
interest in and commitment to preventing suicides and promoting hope and
resiliency for all Canadians.
We hope that working together as members of the National Collaborative
for Suicide Prevention will reduce numbers of suicides and suicide
attempts. Our overall aim is to increase
the capacity for effective suicide prevention, intervention and postvention by
connecting people, ideas, and resources on a pan-Canadian level and therefore:
- Enhance capacity building for suicide prevention in Canada;
- Build awareness of suicide as a social and public health problem;
- Integrate suicide prevention and information in the work of each of our organizations;
- Promote knowledge exchange and mobilization on suicide prevention across Canada;
- Promote strategies and leading practices to reduce the incidence and prevalence of suicidal behaviors;
- Support and enhance efforts at the local, provincial, territorial, and national level to prevent suicides; and
- Promote awareness of the benefits of postvention and supports for those bereaved by suicide.
CASP continues to
focus on knowledge exchange and has recently published two valuable resources
to assist families and workplaces to engage in life promotion and life saving
conversations. Hope and Resiliency at Home and Hope and
Resiliency at Work contain useful information about ways Canadians can
enhance their mental well being and those of others thereby promoting a suicide
safer community. These resources can be found on our website at www.suicideprevention.ca.
CASP is also
hosting its Annual Conference in Winnipeg on October 1 and 2, 2013. As a
continuation of the Hope and Resiliency at Work and Home and life promotion
theme, the conference will focus on ‘Creating New Pathways: Trauma Informed
Approaches to Suicide Prevention’. This event is also a collaborative initiative,
occurring in tandem with the annual conference of the Native Mental Health
Association whose annual gathering immediately precedes our own and will focus
also on trauma, from an indigenous perspective.
For more information and to register, visit www.caspconference.ca.
