Canadian Mental Health Association Nova Scotia Division Launches ASIST

Sep 16, 2022

Suicide is preventable. Anyone can make a difference. ASIST empowers participants with the skills to intervene and help someone stay safe.

The Canadian Mental Health Association Nova Scotia Division [CMHA NS] is proud to announce that beginning Fall 2022, we will be offering Applied Suicide Intervention Training [ASIST].

ASIST is an intensive, interactive, and practice-dominated course designed to help caregivers recognize and review risk, and intervene to prevent the immediate risk of suicide. It is by far the most widely used, acclaimed and researched suicide intervention training workshop in the world.

Although ASIST is widely used by healthcare providers, participants don’t need any formal training to attend the workshop—ASIST can be learned and used by anyone.

About ASIST

As the world’s leading suicide intervention workshop, ASIST program is supported by numerous evaluations including independent and peer-reviewed studies. Results demonstrate that ASIST helps participants become more willing, ready, and able to intervene with someone at risk of suicide.

ASIST is a resource for the whole community. It helps people apply suicide first-aid in many settings: with family, friends, co-workers, and teammates, as well as formal caregiving roles. Many organizations have incorporated ASIST into professional development for their employees. Its widespread use in various communities creates a common language to understand suicide safety issues and communicate across different organizational backgrounds.

Learn more.

Thanks to the generosity of the Mental Health Foundation, CMHA NS is able to launch this important community resource by offering three subsidized training sessions to community members and volunteers/staff from community-based organizations for whom the regular ASIST fees are a barrier. The subsidized rate is $79.06 including taxes.

Contact Elizabeth Baker at [email protected].

These subsidized sessions will be held in the Annapolis Valley in September, in the Halifax Regional Municipality in December and in Truro in January. There will be a minimum of 15 participants with a maximum of 30 participants per session.

The first of these sessions is will be held in Kingston, Nova Scotia on September 20 and 21, 2022 from 8:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. Dates for December and January will be announced this fall. Please check back or follow us on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter or Linked In for updates.

Please Note: ASIST training is a total of 16 hours over two-days with an hour lunch break and two nutritional breaks. Fees include course materials and light snack and refreshments provided during nutritional breaks. Lunch is not provided.

Learning Objectives

Recognize that caregivers and persons at risk are affected by personal and societal attitudes about suicide
Discuss suicide with a person at risk in a direct manner
Identify risk alerts and develop a safe plan related to them
Demonstrate the skills required to intervene with a person at risk of suicide
List the types of resources available to a person at risk of suicide, including themselves
Make a commitment to improving community resources and networking
Recognize that suicide prevention is broader than suicide intervention and, includes life promotion and self-care for persons at risk and for caregivers

Did you know? ASIST Training can be booked by employers at any time.

To learn more about ASIST or book a training session, contact: Elizabeth Baker, Provincial Lead Education and Training, CMHA NS Division

Email: [email protected] | Phone at 782.777.0196