Suicide Prevention In Canada

The social issue that I would like to address as a social worker is the epidemic of indigenous youth suicide in Canada. On the macro level, I believe this issue can be understood through two fundamental components: the residual effects of colonization trauma passed through generations and the effects of current colonial-based, neo-liberal institutional actions on indigenous youth.

Suicide is prevalent amongst Native American youth because of all the problems they may face. They face problems in many different ways and they think their only way out is to commit suicide. Based on the text, it states, “But lack of resources to treat mental health problems, substance abuse and family turmoil have an effect too, Wagner said. "There is this feeling of being trapped, and having nowhere to go"”(Newsela). This shows that the Native Americans have some problems that they think they can’t overcome. The reservations don’t have as many organizations to help and prevent suicide. Some Native Americans who go to school say that the teachers are being hard on them, but the teachers don’t know what is happening at home. They face problems at home with their family.

During the time residential schools existed, the Aboriginal population of Canada was forced to endure appalling treatment. Residential school is regarded as a thing of the past by high school history books, but is that really true when the oppression and abuse that occurred in residential schools has had a long-term effect on Aboriginal peoples? Intergenerational effects of residential schools include post-traumatic stress disorder, high rates of addiction, abuse and violence, probable deadly illnesses, and elevated statistics of suicide in Aboriginal communities. A substantial number of authors, historians, and researchers attest to the fact that residential schools have influenced a number of generations of the Aboriginal people of Canada.

Suicide attempts are highest among American Indian/Alaska Native (AI/AN) females, followed by AI/AN males, and are lowest among African American and White adolescent males. Due to shame and the value placed on not looking weak in the African American community, some youth use less taboo ways of ending their lives. Wolfgang (1959) stated that, “victim-precipitated suicide is disproportionately represented among African American males.” For example, “In studies of officer-involved shootings, there appears to be evidence of suicidal intent in between 10% and 46% of cases” (Klinger, 2001). Therefore, due to cultural beliefs within the African American community, sometimes African Americans use victim-precipitated suicide as a more conventional way of ending their lives. The American Indian/Alaska Native group has also been

Since December of 2015, there has been an alarming rate of suicides to occur in Manitoba, Canada on the Cross Lake First Nation Indian Reserve. Since then six students have committed suicide while ten others have attempted it. Most of the people who have attempted suicide are ninth and tenth graders of that school and are currently on a suicide prevention list. The chief of the small community of only six thousand eight hundred individuals is calling a state of emergency. Shirley Robinson who is the chief told CNN, “There's so much hurt, there's so much pain. You can feel it in every direction of our nation. Only last year there was one suicide while in some of the recent past years there had been no suicides. The community said it is difficult

Aboriginal people represent less than 3% of the total population in BC. Yet, they account for more than 9% of all suicides in BC (Chandler). The numbers of suicides amongst aboriginal youth are even more alarming – nearly one-fourth of all youth suicides in BC are committed by aboriginals and more than half of all aboriginal suicides are committed by youth (Chandler). The fact that indigenous communities in Canada have the highest rate of suicide of any culturally identifiable group in the world implies that these alarming statistics may not solely be a result of aboriginal communities belonging to a minority cultural group. I will attempt to build a speculative hypothesis behind the significantly high suicide rates amongst aboriginal

The inability to make and prolong relationships leads to a sense of isolation, and contributes to poor mental health and depression. Hospitalisation rates for self-harm are representative of mental illness, depression and stress – and in 2006, Indigenous Australians were 3 times more likely to be hospitalized for severe self-harm than other Australians. In 2011, 80% of suicides of the ages 19 to 24 were

According to STATS Canada, suicide is the leading cause of death among Canadian aboriginals between youth and adults under 44 years old. (Kirmayer et al., 2007, p. xv)

The video “Still Waiting in Attawapiskat: Will Canada Fail the Next Generation of First Nations Students?” was released in 2008 based on the inequity that first nations experience in poverty, education, safety, mental health and so on. The main issues were focused on poor education environment and youth mental health.

Using material from Item A and elsewhere, assess different sociological explanations of suicide. (21 marks)

The Centre for Suicide Prevention, also known as the CSP is an education centre with the largest known English language library devoted to the collection and publication of suicide prevention and intervention resources. They provide many different resources on the topic of suicide with information in risk factors, stats, programs and more. This source perfectly fits my chosen topic. This article was published in June 2013, which was fairly recent, therefore it being relevant to my research. I decided to select this source because it gave me exactly what I was looking for in order to have a successful research paper. It will be most helpful to the concrete data of my essay. This article gives an anthropological view on suicide within the Aboriginal community. This article was able to give an insight on how Aboriginals were alienated and taken away from their culture, therefore causing

In fact, there is higher prevalence of suicidal thoughts in the Aboriginal women in comparison with the non Aboriginal women. According to the Survey (2016), First Nations, Métis and Inuit adults more than one in five reported having suicidal ideations at some point in their lives. Interestingly, family violence which resulted to low self-esteem, major depressive disorder, alcohol consumption are associated to suicidal thoughts in Metis men and women (Kumar, 2016). In addition, the frequency and the concentration of alcohol consumption increases the suicidal thoughts increases the suicidal thoughts and Metis women who drink heavily and frequently are more at risk of lifetime suicidal thoughts (Kumar et al.,

This situation relates to anthropology as La Loche has a high rate of youth suicide, and they are unable to access many government services (ie. health care). La Loche is a tiny, close-knit community mostly consisting of Dene aboriginals. The community is isolated in the northern areas of Saskatchewan where jobs and other opportunities are extremely scarce. An anthropologist will look at how the social and physical environments in La Loche influences how the perpetrator lives, thinks, communicates, and interacts with others in the community. A possible conclusion could be that the remoteness of La Loche and the historically prevalent depression rates amongst the Dene culture provoked the actions of the perpetrator. Thus, the anthropology questions were created with the objective to explore the link between the secluded Aboriginal community and the violent actions of the perpetrator.

As time went by, there were more people in need of jobs, therefore, not a lot of Aboriginal people had job. The Aboriginal people became poor and are the poorest people in Canada. First Nations people needed to get away from their problems and this was the easiest solution that they found. Many of these problem lead to suicidal attempts. According to the 2014 BC Mental Health and Addictions Journal, it shows the highest rates of suicidal attempts were made by the Inuit, the first Nation’s People were second on the list and the Canadians over all were at the bottom of the list. The report also shows that females are more likely to have a suicidal attempt the males, and how rates of completed suicides are higher amongst male. “Depression is a common and life-changing mental illness in the Canadian population. This is especially true for First Nations people, who experience major depression at twice the national average.” This is more common in adults who live on reserves or have lived on reserves in the past. Surveys also show “Around 75% of all residents feel alcohol use is a problem in their community, 33% indicate that it’s a problem in their own family or household and 25% say that they have a personal problem with alcohol.”

So far this century, more than a quarter of all Inuit deaths in Nunavut have been suicide: twenty seven percent, which is one of the highest suicide rates in the world. For Canada's first nation’s population, suicide rates are twice the national average. In both indigenous groups, females attempt suicide more than males. The ratio of aboriginal suicides is a 3:2 ratio which is significantly higher than the Canadian suicide average. Young adults ages 15-24 form the age group with the most suicides which is surprisingly, five to seven times the Canadian average. Particularly, there are broad based inequalities on many across all areas of children's experiences: education, healthcare, housing, and food/water. In fact, because we have not dealt