This week, Sept. 20-26, has been declared Mental Health and Suicide Prevention Awareness Week by the Town of Westlock.
The declaration came at the town council’s Sept. 14 meeting at the request of the Soul Sisters Memorial Foundation.
Soul Sisters is a local organization that aims to educate on, raise awareness about, and break down the stigma surrounding mental illness.
“The declaration shows support for us and that we’re getting some more of the town on side for what we’re doing, and you can see the good in the community,” said Christine Vachon, president of the Soul Sisters Memorial Foundation.
As part of Mental Health and Suicide Prevention Awareness Week, Soul Sisters is running a number of events and seminars this week.
They include a function on Saturday night at the Westlock and District Community hall headlined by The Boom Chucka Boys and seminars by musician and youth-mental-health advocate Rob Nash.
Nash will be giving two multimedia and interactive sessions to middle and high school students while in town and will also appear at Saturday’s concert.
“He does impersonations, he does some songs, he’s got a video and talks to the kids about how his life took him to where he is today,” said Vachon. “He talks to the kids about depression and self-harm and potential suicide.
“At the end of his presentation, kids that are struggling flock to him. Three hundred kids go back to class and 100 get his autograph.”
Soul Sisters has undertaken a wide range of activities since its inception two years ago.
Most are focused on providing healthcare workers and others on the front line, as well as interested people, with the skills needed to provide better outcomes for those with mental health issues.
The group’s activities include education and training programs focused on identifying and assisting people at risk of suicide, self-harm and depression and working with the organizations dealing with the causes of those issues, like family violence and poverty.
“We did eight things last year,” Vachon said. “We did a safe talk for suicide assist, which is a one-day course so you know how to talk to someone who could be suicidal and then there was a two-day course for professionals.
“I find the more we do things, the higher our enrolment gets. People are slowly coming out of their comfort zone and coming forward and asking for different courses.”
Saturday night’s concert and event called Nelly’s Project 2 will help fund some of those activities, as well as provide donations to other organizations working in the area.
For Vachon, her drive to help those touched by the epidemic of mental illness comes from a personal place. She’s been affected by the loss of a loved one by their own hand.
Sadly, her campaign and the Soul Sisters Memorial Foundation has to exist because the services available to people dealing with mental health issues are either lacking or non-existent.
Vachon’s campaign is grounded in realistic goals — she’s not aiming to see mental health issues be a thing of the past. Rather, she’s seeking tangible, positive interventions for the here and now.
“The perfect thing would be me having some type of residential off-the-beaten-path place that people know they could come to for resources,” she said.
“It would be awesome to have people on staff that are counsellors and mental health nurses. That would be in a perfect world.”
