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February 12, 2007 Atlantic Health Sciences Corporation implementing ASIST (Applied Suicide Intervention Skills Training) February is Suicide Prevention Awareness Month in New Brunswick. The campaign's theme, Connecting to Life, encourages all New Brunswickers to connect to life to support suicide prevention. Atlantic Health Sciences Corporation’s (AHSC) Mental Health Services is making a tremendous investment in the area of suicide prevention. It has provided leadership in the development and coordination of delivery of the most current suicide intervention program in Canada - ASIST. ASIST stands for Applied Suicide Intervention Skills Training, will be available to all mental health clinicians and managers between now and March 31, 2008. Additionally these workshops are open to community partners who also see the value in suicide intervention. Gregory Zed is the Regional Manager for Mental Health Services in Sussex and also serves on the Community Suicide Prevention Committee in Sussex, and represents AHSC on a Provincial Post Suicide Review Committee. Zed was involved in extensive suicide research conducted in New Brunswick and has worked closely with the Department of Family and Community Services in training foster parents and group home staff in our region. He has been accepted to speak at the American Association of Suicidology in April in New Orleans, sharing his experience and expertise in the area of suicidology. Zed stresses that “suicide is everyone’s business.” Making people more aware of the warning signs of suicide, means everyone can play a role in ensuring that help is available. Zed explains that “often people feel they hit a brick wall, but this feeling is very temporary and there are solutions, help and support available no matter how serious you think or feel your problems may be. Having people trained in dealing with these feelings will translate into faster problem identification before an individual becomes suicidal Zed concluded. Working with caregivers of all kinds, ASIST prepares helpers to competently and confidently intervene with a person at risk of suicide. Caregivers master “suicide first aid” for reasons similar to those for learning CPR or basic physical first-aid. Advanced and other skills such as intervention and networking are then layered on to this suicide first-aid foundation. ASIST is the most widely used, acclaimed and researched suicide intervention skills training in the world. It has been refined over 19 years with feedback from more than 250,000 participants and 1,000 active trainers. Training is currently underway in this health region and several additional opportunities are scheduled as follows:
Sussex (contact Karen Scott at 432-2072):
AHSC Contact: Copyright © 2007 Atlantic Health Sciences Corporation. All rights reserved. |
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