The 2008 suicide of a Carleton student has prompted her brother to call for a national suicide prevention strategy.
Marc Kajouji has committed to advocating for a national suicide prevention strategy after the death of his sister Nadia. He also worked closely with Conservative MP Harold Albrecht on Bill C-300.
Nearly 4,000 Canadians take their own lives every single year, according to Statistics Canada.
“That would be like a jumbo jet crashing every single month. That is the number of people that we are losing to suicide,” said Tana Nash, the executive director of the Canadian Association for Suicide Prevention (CASP).
Despite the high number of suicides annually, Canada still does not have a national strategy, unlike other G7 countries.
Bill C-300, the Federal Framework for Suicide Prevention, received royal assent in 2014, but it is the farthest the federal government has come in terms of concrete action on suicide prevention.
Nash said the association has already written two blueprints for a national suicide strategy and is fully supportive of Kajouji’s call.
When thinking of the way it wants to approach suicide prevention, Nash said she believes the federal government should look to the province of Quebec for an example.
“We have such a great model in Quebec,” Nash said. “They have a staff of 10 that’s dedicated to suicide prevention. They are the only province that’s reduced suicide.”
While there continues to be a great deal of stigma attached to mental health issues on university campuses, a group of student advocates at Carleton want their peers to know there are people on campus who care about them and the supports they need in order to thrive.
The Student Alliance for Mental Health (SAMH) is a student-run club that advocates on behalf of the Carleton population for better on-campus resources.
Part of the organization’s mandate is to spark a dialogue between students, faculty, and university administration on subjects such as mental health and suicide prevention.
SAMH seeks to “raise awareness and educate” others in order to get people talking about mental illness, said its vice-president of student issues and equity Charissa Feres.
Feres said her team is working on developing a peer support network. The group just acquired office space in Renfrew House and hopes the program will be fully operational by the next academic year.
“One thing that’s lacking at Carleton is obviously peer-to-peer support . . . in mental health specifically. We do have it for academics, but we’re looking to focus it more on mental health and general well-being,” Feres said.
While Feres credits Carleton’s Health and Counselling Services staff for doing the best they can to support students, she said there is always a need for improvement.
According to Maureen Murdock, the director of Health and Counselling Services at Carleton, most funding for counselling services comes from the provincial government. Only a small fraction of the costs are paid for by students’ health and counselling fees.
Murdock said between 2014 and 2015 health and counselling services saw nearly 10,500 students for mental health reasons.While she said she believes more can be done to support students, her department is constrained by the amount of funding they receive from the Ontario government.
“In terms of providing more mental health services and to have them on campus, the [Ontario] Ministry of Health and Long-Term Care needs to contribute some funding. Students need to direct their requests to the Ministry of Health and Long-Term Care,” Murdock said.
Meanwhile, Feres and her organization said they will continue giving students the chance to be heard by university administration when it comes to resources that can improve their mental health.
“I think right now one of the most important things is to allow students to have a voice and to have a say in mental health programs and the mental health system at Carleton,” Feres said.
