Acting On What We Know: Preventing Youth Suicide in First Nations

Part 3. The Importance of Community-Driven Approaches

Introduction

The predicament of contemporary Aboriginal youth cannot be separated from the problems that have beset their communities as part of the legacy of colonialism. RCAP argued that colonization resulted in a historical power imbalance, concluding that high suicide rates among Aboriginal people are a result of severe social and cultural disorganization.(RCAP, op. cit.) Aboriginal peoples' loss of control over their lives and lands has contributed to a host of social, political and economic problems in communities. Given this history, it is crucial that any program designed to prevent First Nations youth suicide should attempt to increase the sense of ownership and self-determination on the part of Aboriginal communities.(See Appendix G for a definition of community and for a summary of current approaches to community development.)

Community management and ownership over the development and implementation of suicide prevention programs is a significant theme in the literature on Aboriginal health. Local control has been identified as a key element in the success of various programs designed to address alcohol and drug addiction, suicide, and family violence(Davis - 1999 p. 15.), and a key aspect of the successful Community-Based Suicide Prevention Program (CBSPP) currently operating in Alaska.(Davis - 1999 p. 33-35, op. cit. in Part One (see recommended program # 2 in App. D).) RCAP recommended that local Aboriginal communities take responsibility for the design of the overall strategy and the delivery of programs geared to prevent suicide.(RCAP, op. cit.)

The idea that the solution cannot be "borrowed or imposed from outside agencies or other communities" was also clearly voiced by Aboriginal youth attending the Nishnawbe-Aski Nation Youth Forum on Suicide.(Nishnawbe- Aski Nation Youth Forum on Suicide, 1995 (op. cit.), p. 31.) As Dion Stout and Kipling note:

• ...surveillance, prevention and crisis intervention programs in the North must be expanded, with a strong focus on initiatives that are designed and implemented by communities themselves.(Madeleine Dion Stout and Gregory D. Kipling, 1999, p. 15.)

It follows that community involvement in developing a program response to the issue of suicide is as important as the actual program that is developed. Communities themselves must be supported in taking control of that process.