Roots of Hope Case Studies – Spotlight on Halton, Ontario

THE HALTON COMMUNITY

Halton is a rapidly growing community with a population of 600,000 (an increase of about 60 per cent from 2001 to 2021). The Halton Suicide Prevention Coalition (HSPC) was created in 2004.

The HSPC’s membership includes representatives from the following organizations:

• Canadian Mental Health Association (CMHA) Halton
• CMHA Hamilton
• Halton Region Health Department
• Halton District School Board
• Halton Catholic District School Board
• Halton Alcohol, Drug, and Gambling Assessment, Prevention, and Treatment Services (ADAPT)
• Distress Centre Halton
• Local hospitals
• Reach Out Centre for Kids (ROCK)
• Oakville Public Library
• Halton Regional Police Service
• Heartache2Hope (suicide loss support)

Additional members include those who are interested, and individuals affected by suicide.

COMMUNITY ACTIVITIES AND ACHIEVEMENTS

1. Gathering data on suicide in our community from the police and public health organizations and creating a database that we plan to use to watch trends and identify priority populations.
2. Customizing the Prevent Suicide: Ways to Make Your Home Safer brochure to include local resources and make it available to local programs and organizations.
3. Launching an annual Garden of Hope rock garden for World Suicide Prevention Day to promote community awareness.
4. Creating working groups within our coalition based on the Roots of Hope pillars to plan, develop, and implement strategies and campaigns.

COMMUNITY IMPACT

These actions have helped us use both quantitative data and the experiences of HSPC members to explore the suicide prevention priorities in our community. The 5 pillars have also helped us ground and organize our initial planning and the creation of our work plan by encouraging us to explore what we are doing well and what improvements we can make. Networking with other communities to learn about their successes has also helped inform our planning.

Through our data-gathering efforts, we were able to identify gaps and needs that will allow us to advocate for consistency and data collection that is meaningful and useful to the community and to suicide prevention outcomes.

Read all Roots of Hope Case Studies