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IQALUIT
When one of her students killed himself, Beata Hejnowicz did not see it coming; by helping create a suicide prevention resource card, she's hoping others won't share her experience.

This is one side of a suicide prevention resource card now being distributed in Iqaluit. - image courtesy of Atiigo/RCMP

"I think he was reaching out and we could have done a lot more, but I was busy with a new group of students and just didn't think that it would happen," Hejnowicz, senior instructor for Nunavut Arctic College's jewelry program, said of the student who died three years ago. "For at least a year he was threatening, but he rose up and was so doing so well."

Attending a recent Applied Suicide Intervention Skills Training (ASIST) course, Hejnowicz learned to see the signs of suicidal tendencies, and looking back, she believes she could have intervened to help the man who had become a close family friend.

"The student came into the program with low self-esteem and didn't think very highly of himself," she recalled. "He came into the program talking about suicide the whole time. Saying, 'Oh, this is it, I'm no good, I'm not worth anything, I'm going to end it.' I would just keep saying, 'No, you are, come on and do this.'"

As his skills developed and his artistic talents grew, so did his confidence in his abilities. Awards followed.

"By the end of the second year, this guy was glowing," she said, noting he was set to become godfather to her newly-adopted daughter. "He looked really well, physically, and he was producing amazing work. He went on a trip with me down south and he met other artists and was involved in shows. He was happy. Then just before Christmas the year after he graduated from the program, we got the news that he chose suicide."

It's a story Sheila Levy, volunteer executive director for the Nunavut Kamatsiaqtut Helpline, has heard all too often.

"Suicide comes up at a far higher proportion than it would in other help-lines throughout the south because so many people here have been impacted by suicide," Levy said.

That's why the help-line jumped at the opportunity to take part in a small project that could play a big role in saving lives. At the end of an ASIST course run in 2010 by RCMP Const. Angelique Dignard, student Marie-France Gagnon suggested making a resource card with phone numbers of agencies that could help. The newly-minted card was funded by the RCMP Foundation, the helpline and Atiigo Media.

"Often people don't have the confidence or training to get involved," Dignard said. "But if they know where to refer the person to, it makes the person more comfortable. It creates a link between the regular person and the professional."

"It's really important for people to have at their fingertips numbers and names of where they can go for help," Levy said. "We make sure all of our volunteers have a copy of this because they need to know resources they can refer callers to."

A total of 5,000 cards have been printed for distribution in Iqaluit. Most of the resources are in the capital, but some are national or American. For other communities, it's a simple idea waiting to be picked up.

"If communities wanted to do something like this for themselves, it is possible," Dignard said. "They just need a community member that wants to do it and it's a matter of partnering with another agency and coming up with a card."

For Hejnowicz, it's a small tool to connect professionals with those at risk of killing themselves.

"Sometimes in those wee hours of the night when you're depressed and alone, and you've chosen the wrong substances to make you feel good," she said, "if a card like that is lying around, I think people would definitely turn to them and use them."

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