Crisis Centre suicideTALK Awareness Session

suicideTALK is a 90-minute awareness session that invites interested community members to become more aware of suicide prevention opportunities in their community. Dealing openly with the stigma around suicide, this exploration focuses upon the question, "Should we talk about suicide?" As a suicideTALK-informed session member, you will be better able to:

• understand how personal and community beliefs about suicide affect suicide stigma and safety;
• appreciate how the TALK steps can be used to help prevent suicide;
• choose among ways to help protect, preserve and promote life in a suicide-safer community.

suicideTALK is aimed at all members and groups in a community. Its goal is to help make direct, open and honest talk about suicide easier. Such talk may:

• encourage life-protection, preservation and promotion activities,
• facilitate community awareness of suicide as a serious community health problem,
• reduce the stigma and taboo surrounding suicide,
• increase personal commitment to and action in preventing suicide, and
• support the spread of training opportunities and networking activities.

It would be ideal if most members of a community attended a suicideTALK session. Exposure of even ten percent of a community’s population to suicideTALK may make a significant difference in the support given to suicide prevention activities. We hope and believe that suicideTALK can contribute to a suicide-safer community.