In the southwestern Ontario community of Woodstock, where five people under the age of 19 have taken their own lives since the beginning of 2016, people have demanded improved mental health resources for youth.
Recent suicides of young people in the remote northern First Nation of Attiwapiskat are also well publicized.
The situation has been termed by some to be a “suicide contagion,” the theory that one suicide can trigger other suicides in a community.
Tragically, student suicides do occasionally happen here, said the director of education with the Rainbow District School Board, the largest school board in the Sudbury area.
But Norm Blaseg said to his knowledge, there there's never been a situation anything like what's happening in Woodstock.
“My first thought is like a parent — I have four children, and I know how tough it is sometimes for kids to go through those teenage years,” he said.
“I mean, it's a parent's worst fear if you're confronted with that sort of scenario. Obviously that community has been dealt a very heavy blow in terms of what they've had to go through.
“I certainly hope Sudbury doesn't have to go through that same challenge. We've never had that type of concentrated flare-up, if you will. I don't know if there's anything behind that, or what types of patterns there are, of if there are any connections between those events.”
In terms of the mental health supports provided by the Rainbow board, Blaseg said they've never had more. He said the board has added five social workers over the past five years.
It also has two mental health workers provided through the Community Care Access Centre.
“We've been asked to hire several more,” Blaseg said.
“The challenge for us, as with any agency, is what is your core business? Your core business is education.
“But we realize if we want to create an environment that's a learning environment, you have to make sure that you can deal with all the other learning pieces that distract children.”
Blaseg said he thinks school boards could be perhaps be doing a better job of collaborating with children's mental health agencies in the community, which are often under-resourced.
In terms of prevention, Rainbow has a program for elementary school students called Spark, where students participate in a group exercise session before classes begin in the morning.
It's designed to improve students' overall well-being, including mental and physical health.
Maaria Moxam, mental health lead with the Sudbury Catholic District School Board, also said she thinks student suicides can be prevented with better access to mental health supports.
“It's giving kids the skills to be able to cope with challenges and providing them with caring adults and people around them who can support them,” she said.
For its part, the Sudbury Catholic board has three mental health workers, including Moxam. She said it also has a mental health drop-in clinic at St. Benedict Catholic Secondary School accessible to all students in the board.
Sudbury Catholic also focuses on prevention. For example, there's a program called Friends provided to all of its Grade 4 students, giving them strategies to cope with life's challenges.
