There is a new national initiative for suicide prevention.
The federal government has announced it intends to gather a series of best practices from other parts of the world for use in Canada — and in particular — Aboriginal communities.
Dr. Malcolm King is one of the lead coordinators of the project.
King says researchers will target countries that have an Indigenous population like Australia, to find out what’s working and what isn’t.
He stresses they realize a one-size-fits-all approach won’t work and whatever methods are discovered will have to be tailor-made for different communities:
“So something worked in an Aboriginal community in Australia…how would you translate that into the context of a Cree community in Saskatchewan?”
King says they’re looking outside Canada’s borders because, while a lot is known about suicide statistics, not nearly enough is known about prevention.