Hope, help, and healing: A planning toolkit for First Nations and Aboriginal communities to prevent and respond to suicide

1. The Hope, Help and Healing approach adopted in this toolkit is based on The Suicide Prevention, Intervention and Postvention Initiative for BC which combines published research findings, the experiences of other provinces, and plans developed in BC.
2. Prevention, Intervention and Postvention (PIP)1 has been adopted as a best practice for use in BC.
3. Think about the three elements of the framework in this way:
• Prevention works to promote protective factors (strengthening community resilience) and reduce risk factors that could lead to suicide ideation….HOPE
• Intervention works to address suicidal thoughts and behaviours. It focuses on how best to respond to someone feeling suicidal or attempting suicide….HELP
• Postvention refers to the community response after a death by suicide has occurred, and is intended to support people affected by suicide, as well as providing follow-up education / prevention to reduce the risk of future crises….HEALING
Based on feedback from communities the PIP approach has been adapted to use strengthsbased language and ideas to express the continuum of work done to prevent and respond to
suicide in communities.