Manitoba post-secondary schools should track student suicides, experts say, but most don't

WARNING: This story con‐ tains discussion of suicide. If you or someone you know is struggling with thoughts of self-harm, see the end of this story for re‐ sources.

Inside Klinic Community Health's Sherbrook Street lo‐ cation in Winnipeg, counsel‐ lors answer calls from people in crisis and lend an ear to those experiencing suicidal thoughts.

Post-secondary students and youth call Klinic's suicide prevention and support line about cost of living and hous‐ ing concerns, or feelings of despair and isolation, said Richelle Ready, Klinic's crisis support services manager.

"It doesn't surprise me that folks such as post-secon‐ dary students are struggling right now. The human experi‐ ence is really challenging," she told CBC in a Wednesday interview.

Collecting data is impor‐ tant for finding out what kind of help people need and where, and for getting fund‐ ing to shore up those sup‐ ports, Ready said.

She thinks post-secondary institutions tracking deaths by suicide and suicide at‐ tempts among students would improve the schools' services.

But an exclusive CBC News investigation has found that more than 70 per cent of Canadian universities do not track suicides or attempted suicides among students.

CBC News asked seven of Manitoba's largest colleges and universities whether or not they do that sort of track‐ ing.

Two said they track stu‐ dent deaths by suicide inter‐ nally. Four said they did not track, and one school said it tracks on-campus medical events.

Suicide has been the sec‐ ond-leading cause of death among youth aged 15 to 24 since at least 2000, according to Statistics Canada. More than 2,500 people in that age group died by suicide be‐ tween 2018 and 2022.

Last year, post-secondary students and youth accoun‐ ted for a higher proportion of callers to Klinic's suicide pre‐ vention and support line than to the health centre's general crisis line, Ready said.

Klinic's suicide prevention and support line is anony‐ mous and available all hours of the day. Although people don't have to disclose infor‐ mation if they don't want to, Klinic keeps track of how many calls it gets and what topics people call about, Ready said.

This informs how Klinic continues to offer help - for example, giving specific train‐ ing to staff who can then help clients better, Ready said.

Collecting data on deaths by suicide and suicide at‐ tempts can help post-secon‐ dary institutions deliver bet‐ ter services for students, and may help develop tools that could potentially predict risk of suicide, said Zachary

Kaminsky, an associate pro‐ fessor of University of Ot‐ tawa's faculty of medicine.

"If we don't track, then we can't act," said Kaminsky, who is also chair of suicide prevention at the Royal, a mental health hospital in Ot‐ tawa.

"If you're not paying at‐ tention to what's going on in terms of the mental health of your students, then you're not in a position to be able to try to improve that mental health."

Tracking destigmatizes mental health: CMU

In Manitoba, Canadian Men‐ nonite University and the University of St. Boniface said they track student suicides on- and off-campus when they are made aware of them.

One CMU student died by suicide in 2018, and two USB students died in 2020, ac‐ cording to the schools.

CMU president Cheryl Pauls says school staff mem‐ bers also file incident reports when suicide attempts are disclosed to them.

That information, al‐ though not formally aggre‐ gated, helps the university become aware of students' concerns and co-ordinate re‐ sources to help them, and destigmatizes mental health concerns, Pauls said in an in‐ terview Thursday.

"Anything you pay atten‐ tion to gets your attention and then you do something about it, so I would have a very strong call towards, yes, keep track of this," she said.

University College of the North, which has campuses in The Pas and Thompson, al‐ so tracks student suicide at‐ tempts internally when they're disclosed to school staff, a spokesperson said in an email. However, the uni‐ versity does not track cause of death information.

Some institutions, includ‐ ing Red River College Poly‐ technic and the University of St. Boniface, told CBC News they don't compile data on suicide attempts. Some, in‐ cluding USB and Brandon University, said they don't collect or share certain infor‐ mation to respect private health information.

Several schools said men‐ tal health is a priority, and they provide counselling and other wellness supports.

The University of Manito‐ ba said it collects feedback at its student counselling and wellness centres and does annual health and wellness surveys, on top of tracking "medical events broadly."

Ongoing supports key: Klinic director

Klinic's director of commu‐ nity health and wellness says the struggles of students, es‐ pecially international studen‐ ts, are already well under‐ stood.

It's not only the cost of liv‐ ing and feelings of despair and isolation they face, but also the pressure of main‐ taining family expectations and grades, all of which can lead to suicidal ideation, said Haran Vijayanathan.

"I think if we can really talk about this as a health crisis, and that this is a choice that people do make but then give them options and support them … we'd ac‐ tually curb this epidemic that we're facing right now," he said.

Klinic has a partnership with the University of Win‐ nipeg, where the organiza‐ tion provides mental health and primary health care. Nearly 50 per cent of the care that is sought there is about mental health, Vi‐ jayanathan said.

Offering ongoing cultural‐ ly relevant counselling and a range of mental health sup‐ ports, along with reducing waits for that care, are some ways post-secondary institu‐ tions could close the gaps in care on and off campus, he said.

Vijayanathan is on board with collecting data if it trans‐ lates into services and tools, particularly culturally sensi‐ tive ones, along with funding.

"If we're just going to col‐ lect data for the sake of col‐ lecting data and have it sit on a shelf, it's not of any use," he said.

CMU's Pauls says that uni‐ versity's data and informa‐ tion has helped shape things like mental health awareness week activities, and helped alert faculty to what they should look out for in their classrooms.

"Keep track of it, so that you shape your time and your messaging and your re‐ sources and your supports to work at this."

If you or someone you know is struggling with thoughts of self-harm, here's where to get help: