Thank you. I'm speaking today as the CEO of the Vanier Institute. As you know, the institute was founded over 50 years ago by the late general, the Right Honourable Georges P. Vanier and his wife Pauline, mother of his five children and, at times, his caregiver. He was one of Canada's most decorated military leaders, a veteran of both world wars who lost part of his leg in the Second World War.
I'm here with my colleague, retired Colonel Russ Mann, who's working with the institute on the military and veteran families in Canada initiative and coordinates the Canadian military and veteran families leadership circle. This is a consortium of over 40 diverse community organizations committed to working together to build a solid circle of support for families of those who choose to wear the uniform for Canada.
I'm not a suicide expert. I'm here to talk about families. I'm here to talk about the role that families play in suicide prevention. I'm here to talk about the diversity of families and the complexity of family life. I'm here to share the evidence from research related to the family's role in suicide prevention, which is particularly difficult because of the inherent challenges of measuring something that didn't happen.
First, families are our first group experience, and our parents are our first group leaders. Families are unique and diverse, family dynamics can be open or guarded, emotions can be suppressed or expressed, and adults can be nurturing or distant. Families can live with abundance or scarcity. Families can be part of a supportive community, or alone and even isolated. Families experience stress together when they move, when there's a change—a birth, a death, an illness, or an injury—when money is tight, when uncertainty is high, when they are separated by circumstance, or when they reunite after time apart.
We each play a role in our families as children and as adults. Some of us are peacemakers, others are troublemakers. Some of us are followers, others are leaders. Some of us are talkers, others are listeners. Some of us are quiet observers, while others test, experiment, and innovate. Families grow tighter and grow apart. They share love, concern, pain, and anguish. They also share joy, hopes, and dreams.
Some families are under stress, some are in distress, and some are in crisis. Research shows that people who are contemplating suicide are feeling despair, anger, fear, and pain—emotional or psychic pain. They're feeling a need to escape, a need to protect others. They feel like there are no other options. Families share that despair; they often bear the brunt of the anger and witness the fear. Families often experience and feel hopelessness and helplessness. People who contemplate suicide feel hopeless and helpless.
Families provide help and hope, but they also both provide and need support. Families that are well supported, functioning, and healthy can be a significant protective factor for those contemplating suicide. Few families are naturally resilient: most need support to become or remain resilient, and some need help to become resilient. The literature shows that strong relationships with family and friends can reduce social isolation. Families can be advocates and system navigators. They can be the centre or foundation of the system of support for people in distress: we've heard some people who have lived through distress—who have come out of the darkness to the other side—report that this was the result of somebody being in their lives who didn't give up.
Families are diverse. They can be effective in supporting a family member with mental illness, depression, or PTSD, but they need support, training, and resources to do so. They need to feel competent, and they need to feel confident that their loved ones will receive the care they need. They need to feel they are not alone. When they reach out on behalf of their loved ones, they need to feel they can focus on accessing need, not scrambling to look for services and spending time on Google. They need to feel that their loved ones get well, not that they have to go on a long wait-list. They need to be able to access services and not fight to be heard.
Families need to find compassion, not confrontation. They need to feel respected, not challenged, and they need to be trusted.
Families cannot be forgotten after somebody dies by suicide. Families need to heal after that experience, that grief, that loss. They need guidance, assistance, and support. Families without support can become part of the problem, rather than a key part of the solution. Families empowered, included, and resourced can be a powerful tool.
Suicide is an extreme end to the wellness spectrum. Suicide is preventable, suicide is complex. Effective suicide prevention isn't a single event, or action, or policy, or program. It's a long-term, comprehensive approach to helping individuals and their families get well, be well, and stay well. It's about care and compassion. It's about the system of government and community supports working with families from the time they become connected to the military, throughout a military career, transitioning out of the military, and living as a veteran.
The Vanier Institute is here as a national resource. We are here to offer our assistance in the research you are doing. We are here to assist you to find the right answers to support families who are experiencing the trauma of people considering suicide.
Thank you very much.