‘I lost my youngest brother to suicide,’ says Jason Whitford. ‘This has been a way for me to make a positive out of a negative.’
Whitford is talking about the trailblazing Youth Suicide Prevention Initiative (YSPI), started a decade ago by the Youth Secretariat staff of the Assembly of Manitoba Chiefs (AM C). The programme, for which he is a trainer, is remarkable because it goes beyond crisis intervention to tackle the entire social matrix of First Nations youth across Manitoba, enabling them to take greater control of their lives and building on community pride.
