Nunavik to host first-ever regional suicide prevention conference

Sallumiut listen in on an ASIST workshop help in their community earlier this year. Nunavimmiut will have the chance to take part in a larger ASIST workshop this fall, at the region’s first-ever suicide prevention conference. (FILE PHOTO)

Health officials in Nunavik have announced the region will host its first-ever suicide prevention and healing conference in 2015.

The regional suicide prevention committee, which operates under the Nunavik Regional Board of Health and Social Services, will host the Puttautiit Conference in Puvirnituq from Oct. 5 to Oct. 10, the health board announced June 18.

Puttautiit is Inuktitut for “life jackets.”

The event is expected to attract about 66 participants from across the region to take part in Applied Suicide Intervention Skills Training (ASIST), along with workshops that touch on the impact of the region’s colonial history, grieving and healing, the health board said in a release.

Participants will include 20 community members from Puvirnituq, another 26 Nunavimmiut from across the region and 20 staff from different organizations, including front-line workers.

The conference is modeled after the annual Dialogue for Life conference that takes place in Montreal, a suicide prevention event focused on the indigenous population of Quebec and Labrador.

In Puvirnituq, this year’s inaugural conference will include recreational and cultural activities, as well as a network exhibition to promote all the programs and services available to Nunavimmiut.

The health board says the Puttautiit Conference will become an annual event in Nunavik, with the intention of holding it in a different community every year.