DR MARGARET NAKHID-CHATOOR
ON REPUBLIC Day at 3 pm, 30 university students, male and female, took time out from their families to attend a gatekeepers training programme for suicide prevention and awareness. Gatekeeper training teaches people to identify individuals who are showing warning signs of suicide risk and to help these individuals get the services they need. They can be committed people with a desire to help others such as parents, friends, neighbours, teachers, clergy, caseworkers and police officers.
This programme was hosted by Mindwise Project and Google Women Techmakers and organised by director Maria O'Brien as part of the Career Development Department of the University of the West Indies where they connect students with career and skill-building opportunities.
It was a volunteer initiative aimed at students coming together to deliver tech-for-good solutions for mental health in our country and in the region; they would learn life skills to improve their own mental health and professional skills that would empower them to be gatekeepers and assist in the mental wellness of their own communities.
This social collective effort is sorely needed during the covid19 pandemic when the rates of suicidal deaths have increased across all age groups and, more so, among the very young children in our society.
As the facilitator of this training programme, the first question that I posed to the students (who ranged in ages 20-27 years) was: Do you think that suicide can really be prevented? Many people believe that if someone has made up their mind to harm themselves, no-one can stop them. What do you think?
Most of the students answered 'yes' and suggested that intervention and support are necessary, and care and empathy shown in their moments of anguish. What was not known to them is that many people who contemplate suicide, including those who eventually kill themselves, have ambivalent feelings about this decision - moments before they end their life.
This concept of ambivalence was explored in detail by Prof Ella Arensman from Ireland, my fellow panellist, as we ended the last day of the week-long IASP (International Association for Suicide Prevention) Global Congress in Australia last Friday at 3 am TT time. Virtually, of course.
I had just finished presenting my research on school alienation and the increase in self-harm among children and adolescents when Arensman discussed her detailed study on the moments before suicide, also conducted among a population of youth.
She stated that whilst people are sincere in their desire to die, they simultaneously wish that they could find another way out of their dilemma. This was a critical dynamic which should be explored by all helpers and listeners as we find ways to divert suicidal behaviours and persuade instead, with messages of hope and purpose.
Gatekeeper training for suicide prevention, therefore, also explores this disturbing variable of ambivalence and
