Lack of cultural continuity could influence suicide rate

Two B.C. professors are preparing to research the factors that lead to Aboriginal youth suicides in Manitoba.
The project is set to begin in the long shadow cast by recent multiple suicides in the Pukatawagan and Shamattawa First Nations.
Dr. Michael Chandler stresses that the research study is not in response to those tragedies-Shamattawa reported 74 children commited suicide in 2007 and 37 more in the first part of 2008-but it seems the research can't happen a moment too soon.
Chandler teaches at the University of British Columbia, and Dr. Christopher Lalonde is with the University of Victoria. Together they have more than 30 years experience in the area and believe that the research will help empower Aboriginal people to fight for more control over their communities, and give hope to Aboriginal young people that the future is worth living for.
Chandler said the evidence from the research that will be done in Manitoba could provide bands with the ammunition they need to show the provincial and federal governments the exact changes needed to suppress youth suicides.
The Canadian Institute of Health Information (CIHI) and the Canadian Institute of Health Research (CIHR) are included in a group of agencies that agreed to support Chandler and Lalonde in 2005. The two psychology professors and their colleagues conducted similar research for B.C.'s First Nations communities.
The Manitoba project will begin as soon as details have been sorted, but Lalonde predicts it will take place sometime in July.
Chandler and Lalonde have collaborated on at least a dozen publications that have linked the high rates of suicide within a small number of First Nations communities in B.C. to the absence of cultural continuity.
After gathering statistics from reserves since 1998, the pair has concluded that the presence of nine "factors" in a community act as protectors to shield Aboriginal youth from a lack of commitment to the future.
According to their most recent research published in 2008, the absence of self-government is a factor that is closely associated to suicides on reserves. The others are unresolved land claims, a lack of control over education, sub-standard health care, few or no cultural facilities, police or fire services, loss of Indigenous language, issues around child protection and the welfare system, and the lack of presence of women in leadership roles, including on council.
"Once self-government is in place, it is easier for some of these communities to accomplish some of the other variables that are associated with suicides," explained Chandler.
The researchers' conclusions are that many of the Aboriginal youth who took their own lives were likely suffering from a disconnect to their Aboriginal culture. The communities the young people came from lacked one, or at times, all nine factors that decrease high rates of suicide.
Because of the differences in history and cultural structure of Aboriginal bands in Manitoba, Chandler predicts new factors will emerge that will make his research unique to the province.
Dr. Michael Chandler said there is a misconception that youth suicide is a plague that affects all First Nations communities across Canada, when that just isn't the case.
"I think the press tends to find words like epidemic, or the notion of a whole related series of suicides, as somehow more newsworthy," said Chandler. He said the reality is that most troubled communities will only have a very small number of youth suicides each year, but they are brushed aside by media, who tend to fixate on the larger number of deaths.
Chief Jeff Napoakesik of Shamattawa First Nation said the community is doing its best to create a more positive environment for their young people.
"We are developing a recreational centre for our youth here in the community," said Napoakesik, who is confident that with more activities available, the young people of Shamattawa will be less likely to "wander around; and not just physically, but in their minds."