NSCSW Lunch & Learn: Depathologizing Suicide

Nova Scotia College of Social Workers

A webinar focused on unpacking suicide and suicide prevention for social workers in Nova Scotia from a social justice lens.

<a href="https://suicideprevention.ca/events/world-suicide-prevention-day/" title="https://suicideprevention.ca/events/world-suicide-prevention-day/" target="_blank" data-msys-clicktrack="0" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer">September 10 is World Suicide Prevention Day</a> and September is Suicide Prevention Awareness Month in Canada. Suicide is an issue impacting service users and community members throughout Nova Scotia and it disproportionately affects individuals from excluded and oppressed communities. At times, addressing suicidality in service users and community can seem like a task too big and too risky for social workers and helpers. However, it is important to understand that everyone can address suicide! At times the biomedical model and institutional silos can create barriers to supporting service users who are affected by suicidality. This session explores the issues of suicidality beyond biomedical concepts and provides social workers and helpers with resources, language, and new understandings about suicidality based on emerging research and evidence. Questions explored in this session include:<ul><li>What are the underlying assumptions in suicide intervention and prevention?</li></ul><ul><li>How might social workers and helpers move beyond clinical and crisis-based approaches to suicide prevention?</li></ul><ul><li>How might social workers and helpers feel less fear and be empowered to address issues of suicide in their practice in clinical, government, and community settings?</li></ul><ul><li>What are the resources, frameworks, and tools that exist to support community-based suicide prevention?</li></ul> This session is in partnership with Nova Scotia Health’s community-based suicide prevention initiative, <a href="https://rootsofhopens.com/" title="https://rootsofhopens.com/" target="_blank" data-msys-clicktrack="0" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer">Roots of Hope</a>. <h3>Objectives</h3><h3> </h3><ul><li>Knowledge: Identify, analyze, and understand the ways suicidality has been framed from a dominant biomedical approaches; differentiate how suicidality can be approached from non-dominant worldviews, lenses, and frameworks; recognizing and explain the ways in which suicide prevention can be approached from a community based and socially just approach; understand and recognize lessons from Roots of Hope and community-based suicide prevention.</li><li>Skills: Apply and implement suicide prevention strategies, resources, and frameworks in social work practice; critiquing dominant biomedical understandings of suicide prevention.</li><li>Values: Examine and shift worldviews, beliefs, and feelings related to underlying issues of suicidality; expansion of awareness and care for people disproportionately impacted by suicide.</li></ul> <h3>Speaker</h3><h4> </h4>Seana Jewer is the Community Engagement Lead with Roots of Hope, where she has spent the past four years building community capacity to support those thinking about or grieving from suicide. With over 25 years of experience in grassroots community work, Seana combines her lived experience with a Master of Business Administration and a Master of Arts in Adult Education to challenge oppressive systems and foster equity. Her approach to suicide prevention focuses on depathologizing suicidality and addressing social and economic factors, creating space for non-clinical individuals to play a meaningful role in building lives worth living. <h3>Eligibility</h3> <h4>NSCSW members</h4>All active, associate, retired associate, and student members of the <a href="https://nscsw.org/" title="https://nscsw.org/" target="_blank" data-msys-clicktrack="0" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer">Nova Scotia College of Social Workers</a> (NSCSW) are welcome to attend; our professional development programming is part of our member services funded by are welcome to attend; our professional development programming is part of our member services funded by <a href="https://issuu.com/nscsw/docs/connection_spring2023_webfinal/42" title="https://issuu.com/nscsw/docs/connection_spring2023_webfinal/42" target="_blank" data-msys-clicktrack="0" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer">annual registration fees.</a> There are no other prerequisites for this session. <h4>Community Partners</h4>All allied practitioners and helpers in Nova Scotia/Mi'kma'ki are eligible to sign up for a $5.00 community partner ticket; just let us know which profession you're part of when you register. <h3>NSCSW Code of Ethics (2025):</h3> <ul><li>Value 1: Respecting the Dignity and Worth of All People</li></ul><ul><li>Guiding Principle 1.1: Social workers respect the inherent dignity and worth of all People.</li></ul><ul><li>Guiding Principle 1.2: Social workers promote the self-determination and autonomy of all People.</li></ul><ul><li>Guiding Principle 1.3: Social workers uphold the human rights and fundamental freedoms of all People consistent with applicable rights and legislation.</li></ul><ul><li>Guiding Principle 1.6: Social workers uphold the rights of all People to receive services in a manner that considers intersecting factors of exclusion and respects all manner of diversity.</li></ul><ul><li>Guiding Principle 1.7: Social workers respect the rights of service users to make decisions based on voluntary consent when possible.</li></ul><ul><li>Guiding Principle 1.8: Social workers uphold the rights of every person, group, and community to be free from violence or threat of violence.</li></ul><ul><li>Value 2: Promoting Social Justice</li></ul><ul><li>Guiding Principle 2.1: Social workers uphold the principles of social justice related to the rights of individuals, families, groups, organizations, and communities to receive fair and equitable access to services, resources, and opportunities and to be free of oppression, racism, and discrimination.</li></ul><ul><li>Guiding Principle 2.4: Social workers advocate for the rights of all individuals, families, groups, and communities to be free from oppression, exclusion, racism, and discrimination.</li></ul><ul><li>Value 4: Valuing Relationships</li></ul><ul><li>Guiding Principle 4.1: Social workers place the well-being and interests of all People at the center of their relationships.</li></ul><ul><li>Guiding Principle 4.2: Social workers continually develop self-awareness and practise self-reflection to guide their practice and personal well-being.</li></ul><ul><li>Value 5: Preserving Integrity in Professional Practice</li></ul><ul><li>Guiding Principle 5.1: Social workers act with integrity, are honest, responsible, trustworthy, and accountable.</li></ul> <h3>Professional development tracking</h3>For members of NSCSW, participating in this event is eligible to fulfill the annual requirement for formal professional development.Members may also choose to follow up after the session to engage in advocacy related to the session's content; such advocacy could be eligible towards the annual requirement to engage in activities related to the pursuit of social justice. Visit <a href="http://nscsw.org/pd" title="http://nscsw.org/pd" target="_blank" data-msys-clicktrack="0" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer">nscsw.org/pd</a> for more information about the updated professional development requirements for Nova Scotia social workers. <h3>Questions?</h3>If you have questions about our professional development program content, please contact the College's Professional Development Consultant, Tyler Colbourne, at tyler.colbourne@nscsw.org.

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NSCSW Lunch & Learn: Depathologizing Suicide

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