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Dealing with suicide

Learning to cope with an invisible problem

Tara Kearsey
Northern News Services

Yellowknife (Nov 06/00) - Turning the tide against suicide in the North will take a wide ranging effort by government and social agencies.

That's what Pauline Plamondon of Hay River believes. She's a suicide prevention facilitator, educator and counsellor. Plamondon led a Nov. 2-5 conference attended by about two dozen counsellors, health workers and concerned citizens from throughout the NWT.

"We're looking to see how the caregivers have been (doing) out there, what have they been doing in their communities and what do they need now," she said.

Plamondon said the nature of suicide means there's not one solution.

Its cause can be traced to rampant alcohol and drug use, low self-esteem, poor education, dysfunctional families, a lack of identity and a need to belong. Last year, 16 people killed themselves in the NWT.

Suicide, especially among aboriginals living in remote communities, is a devastating problem, made worse by the code of silence that surrounds it, explained Plamondon.

"The majority of the ones that are thinking about killing themselves are not heard about unless a caregiver, like myself, talks about it.

"A lot of the workers in the communities don't disclose it because it's mostly confidential and the only time it becomes a statistic is when they're dead. But, the problems are still there," she said.

"What is behind this Suicide Prevention workshop is to train the people in their own communities because they know what's going on, they know what they need for the next step," she said.

To solve the problem, Plamondon said training must address all Northern needs. That means combining traditional counselling techniques with the knowledge and understanding of aboriginal cultures and behaviour.

People in trouble also need someone to talk to, says Laura Lennie, a retired community health representative in Tulita.

She is well-known as a confidante in the community and receives calls from troubled individuals on a regular basis, even though she is not working any more.

"After I retired from work I kind of came away from counselling, but I'm slowly coming back again because I'm always getting phone calls from somebody who wants to talk, so I try my best with that," she said.

A community that is having success in prevention suicide is Fort Good Hope.

Dolly Pierrot, chief and mayor, said community education and prevention programs available at the Alcohol and Drug Prevention Center are making a difference.

"They do a lot of prevention work with the students and they also do newsletters, so there is some education there for the public," she said.

As well, the Department of Health and Social Services sends a facilitator to the community to provide workshops at the school once a year.