CAP Health Policy Program
National Aboriginal Youth Suicide Prevention Strategy (2005 - 2010)

National Aboriginal Youth Suicide Prevention Strategy

In September 2004 at a meeting of Aboriginal leaders and Canada’s First Ministers, the Prime Minister agreed to address suicide prevention amongst Aboriginal youth. $65 million was committed in the 2005 Federal Budget to be allocated over a 5-year period.

The National Aboriginal Youth Suicide Prevention Strategy (NAYSPS) was developed with the goal of reducing risk factors and promoting protective (preventive) factors against suicide.

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The strategy follows a number of guiding principles and must:

• Be evidence-based;
• Target support for community-based approaches;
• Be culturally appropriate;
• Addresses all levels of prevention;
• Involve youth;
• Consider varying level of community-readiness;
• Promote preventing suicide as the responsibility of all - people, communities, agencies, organizations, and governments; and
• Promote life and well-being

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The strategy will achieve its objectives through activities in four areas:

1.  Primary Prevention
Activities focus on promoting mental health to increase resiliency and reduce risk.

2.  Secondary Prevention
Activities focus on supporting collaborative, community-based approaches to preventing suicide.

3.  Tertiary Prevention
Activities focus on increasing the effectiveness of responding to and stabilizing crisis, and of after-care for survivors.

4.  Developing knowledge

The primary prevention part of this strategy targets all Aboriginal groups.  Funding for the secondary and tertiary prevention parts specifically target reserve and Inuit communities.  Some funding will support off-reserve Aboriginal people to gather data and examine the issue of youth suicide. This knowledge will provide the evidence required to plan how best to proceed.  This will involve provincial and territorial partners due to their mandates for off-reserve Aboriginal people including Métis and urban Inuit.*

CAP’s Involvement in the NAYSPS
During the 2006-2007 fiscal year CAP received a small amount of funding from the First Nations Inuit Health Branch (FNIHB) of Health Canada to participate in the National Aboriginal Youth Suicide Prevention Strategy. The project provided CAP with the opportunity to engage its Affiliate and Partner Organizations through the Health Advisory Committee for the purpose of identifying gaps in programs, services, and research and to identify project priorities. 

CAP was successful in negotiating support this year to conduct a small research project aimed at addressing the data gap that exists on the subject of suicide among Aboriginal youth living off reserve. It is expected that the information gathered during this project will advance our participation in the NAYSPS to include the development and piloting of prevention-based projects. Activities for this project will include the following: 

Mental Health Service Directory:  The goal of the directory is multi-faceted.  First, the directory will provide CAP Affiliate and Partner Organizations with information needed to assist in the referral of clients to appropriate services.  The directory will identify potential partnership opportunities at the national, provincial, and local levels as well as potential funding sources. Finally, the directory will allow the identification of gaps in existing services including those related to Aboriginal mental health human resources, culturally relevant services, and culturally adaptable services.

Pilot Research Project:  CAP will work in partnership with a number of service delivery organizations for the purpose of gathering aggregate data on the mental health and youth.  As per funding requirements, the purpose of this pilot is to create a "picture" of the suicide situation that exists off reserve - an area of research largely ignored. The type of information to be gathered varies and will be dependent upon what is actually out there. CAP is cognizant of sensitivity and privacy issues related to collecting this data and honours the principles of Ownership, Control, Access and Possession (OCAP).