Darrell Greer
Northern News Services

Rankin Inlet (Jan 16/02) - Front-line workers in community care received critical training in suicide prevention last week.

The program ran Jan. 7-10 at the Pulaarvik Kablu Friendship Centre in Rankin Inlet, with eight workers attending the morning session and four more in the evening.

The workshop was sponsored by the Kataujaq Society Safe Shelter, with funding provided by Brighter Futures.

The sessions were attended by safe-shelter staff, as well as people from the spousal assault program, victims assistance and the legal aid office.

Evelyn Thordarson of the Kataujaq Society says she is happy with the way everything came together for the program.

"We had Caroline Anawak set up and deliver this workshop for us," says Thordarson. "She does a lot of training with front-line workers on suicide prevention and we felt quite fortunate to have her deliver the program."

Brighter Futures, Thordarson added, "prefers for us to have someone from Nunavut deliver the training program, so having Caroline available worked out well on that front too." She adds delivering suicide-prevention training to those involved with community care is ultimately aimed at saving lives.

She says the training could help numerous clients in the run of a year who show up at the safe shelter.

"The training these workers received could also benefit people who need help from our victims assistance worker or who enter the new spousal assault program. Some people are already at their wit's end before they finally seek help," she says.

"Sadly, when a person waits that long to seek help from a certain situation, they may already be at the point where they're contemplating suicide."

Thordarson says in the past, safe-shelter staff didn't have the proper training to deal with people who may have been contemplating suicide.

She says the Kataujaq Society is happy local workers are now properly trained to handle such difficult situations.

"This training gives our workers one more tool in dealing with situations which may prove themselves to be life or death."