The purpose of the Suicide Prevention Brant committee is to provide strategic direction and leadership to help make Brantford/Brant a suicide safer community; and support the implementation and awareness of the Suicide Prevention Protocol.
Suicide Prevention Brant coordinates and plans with community services, persons with lived experience, volunteers, and school boards to further partnerships and improve service coordination regarding suicide prevention, intervention, and post-vention services. This collaborative effort aims to reduce the incidence of suicide and impact of suicide.
Connection to Woodview
As the Lead Agency for Child & Youth Mental Health in Brant, Woodview has chosen to fund a Suicide Prevention Coordinator position, a role that co-chairs the meetings and helps to mobilize the work of the committee.
What are the Guiding Principles of Suicide Prevention Brant?
The following principles are foundational to the intent and purpose of the committee:
- Suicide prevention, intervention and post-vention are everyone’s responsibility;
- Suicidality is an interaction of multiple factors including biological, psychological and social components;
- Community, health and school based services/programs play equally important roles providing suicide prevention programs;
- Brant is a distinctive community with unique factors influencing suicide rates, overall mental health issues and service delivery;
- Suicide issues impact all ages – there is an ongoing need for prevention, intervention and post-vention services/programs.
Who is involved in Suicide Prevention Brant?
There has been a suicide prevention committee in Brantford since 2005. The committee was revamped in 2014 and is now known as Suicide Prevention Brant.
Suicide Prevention Brant is made up of representatives from a variety of community groups including mental health, public health, police, education, social services, child welfare, municipal services, and faith-based services who have come together to develop a strategy for working together to raise the profile of suicide as an issue, and to educate the community in how every member can play a role in reducing the incidence of suicide.
Membership of the Suicide Prevention Committee of Brant is open to residents and employees in the City of Brantford, the County of Brant, Six Nations of the Grand River, and Mississaugas of the Credit, including:
- organizations providing mental health services to children, youth, adults, and their families;
- service providers in education, health, municipal, justice, child welfare; and who provide support services in the community
- interested persons in the community
How can I receive training in suicide prevention?
Through the partnerships formed in Suicide Prevention Brant as a collective we are able to offer cost effective suicide prevention training to individuals, organizations, and groups throughout the year.
We offer the following suicide prevention training:
