ON A MISSION TO HELP SAVE LIVES
Students from two elementary schools pushing province to tackle youth suicide issues
The policy-makers heading to Queen’s Park next week to demand politicians act on youth suicide are younger than most. They’re barely teenagers. Young women from two London elementary schools are pushing for change, urging MPPs to write suicide-specific materials into Ontario’s school curriculum — a move cheered by suicide education experts.
Starting at school, the teens say, is the best way to prevent suicide, a public health challenge that’s plagued Southwestern Ontario in recent years and kills more young people in Canada than any other cause, except for accidental death. Less than two years ago, underlining the point, Woodstock was embroiled in a youth suicide crisis that claimed the lives of five teens in the span of four months. “It’s a really pressing matter. It really is life or death,” said 13-yearold Kennedi Knoch, a student at St. Paul Catholic elementary school. It’s time for change, the girls say, and they’re ready to fight for it — preparing a petition to be presented on the floor of the provincial legislature. The effort began with a letter-writing campaign, with seven Grade 8 students writing letters to the editor of The London Free Press. The young women formed a “Girls Government” under the tutelage of London West MPP Peggy Sattler.
The goal is to learn about politics, government and the workings of the provincial system. And to make a difference. After a vigorous debate, the girls chose to tackle a weighty topic — suicide. Sattler said she was worried about how the girls in the program might react to speakers on such a heavy issue, but they’ve exceeded expectations.
“The kind of attention that these girls have been giving to this initiative ... has been actually quite inspiring,” Sattler, an NDP MPP and former school trustee, said. “They are working on this independently, it’s not connected to their school, it’s not their parents who are feeding them this stuff.” On Wednesday, the girls will take their demands to Queen’s Park, hoping to pressure MPPs to help tackle youth suicide by putting their policies into action. Asked what he makes of the girls’ push for change, the Progressive Conservative education critic at Queen’s Park wouldn’t commit to an overhauled curriculum. “We need to do everything we can to prevent youth suicide. This includes proper education in our schools, but it also includes treating mental-health conditions — a leading cause of suicide — as a priority,” said Whitby-Oshawa MPP Lorne Coe. He pointed out the Tories have promised to put $1.9 billion into mental health over 10 years.
The Education Ministry points to the health and physical education curriculum, which touches on suicide under topics like “personal safety and injury prevention” in high school, and the government’s commitment to a program funnelling $6 million over the next three years to pump up school boards’ mental-health programs.
But the girls want more. More time spent on mental health teachings. More suicide-prevention training. More dollars to make it all happen.
Making suicide prevention an everyday goal, just like learning to read or do long division, could help arm young people with the tools they need to help their peers, one expert says.
It’s the difference between being proactive and reactive about suicide, said Carolyn FitzGerald, an assistant professor of education at Wilfrid Laurier University who runs a mental health certificate program for educators.
“As a society, we need to make a commitment to make sure at least some of our time and energy is going into preventative work,” she said.
“If (young people) know signs of suicide and they recognize them, they can save someone’s life by reporting it or trying to help them,” added Adria Gioiosa, one of the Grade 8 girls from St. Paul. Experts agree educating young people, rather than trying to shield them from suicide, is crucial. When a teen struggles, the warning signs are often subtle, and might be posted on social media where only their peers can see. “Making sure young people are informed and knowledgeable, so they can recognize the signs, they can respond, and they can help make those connections to an adult, that could be incredibly advantageous. There’s a lot of power in that,” FitzGerald said. It’s a lesson that was learned in Woodstock schools, where students staged a walkout in 2016 to demand more mental health services after five young people took their lives in four months.
An Aylmer family spoke out about suicide later that year when their teen son took his life. Last month, on the same day, two Western University students died suddenly. At least one struggled with depression, according to an obituary. It came just months after two other Western students died suddenly in November, with extra grief counsellors called in. The girls are forcing educators and policy-makers to confront a gap in the system, said Gail Lalonde, mental health lead for the Thames Valley District school board.
“I’m really impressed. They’re asking us to have a conversation that we really need to have. I’m really thankful for the work they’re doing,” she said.
“Having young peoples’ voices and ideas and thoughts is so very important.”
Crafting a mental health curriculum would ensure Ontario school boards are consistent in how they teach mental wellness skills, Lalonde said.
But FitzGerald warns that new curriculum materials have to be rigorously tested first.
“We simply don’t know whether they ’re effective. We need to make sure what we’re doing is appropriate and meaningful. That’s really important,” she said.
But the girls are undeterred. They’ve also written to the health and education ministers. “We can maybe try to prevent it by putting it into school curriculums and teaching kids at an earlier age,” said Eman Tanveer, 13, one of the girls in the campaign from Clara Brenton public school.
A SAMPLING: WHAT THE GIRLS WANT
A mandatory mental-health
■ curriculum, from kindergarten to Grade 12, with age-appropriate concepts such as coping skills for younger students and suicide-awareness training for older ones. Funding for teacher resources,
■ new curriculum training and professional development.
A public education campaign to
■ promote youth mental health. Funding for more mental-health
■ professionals, including school social workers.
WHAT HAPPENS WITHOUT CURRICULUM
Without much in the way of a formal mental-health curriculum, teachers are limited but still try to work mental wellness into daily education and other subjects, said Gail Lalonde of the Thames Valley District school board. “You wouldn’t ask a child to go out and play in an Olympic hockey game without years of practice — same with healthy coping skills. We want the children to actually be able to use these strategies in their lives,” she said. Thames Valley schools get a kit full of books that tackle mental health topics, and a teachers’ guide to everyday practices was recently rolled out — sharing everything from simple deep breathing to stress-busting strategies for anxious kids.
THE GIRLS’ PETITION:
Read it at peggysattler.ca/petitions.