Making connections to hope
Dammy Albach has been involved with suicide prevention for more than 30 years.
Since the 70s, when she helped train volunteers at the Vancouver Crisis Centre, Dammy Damstrom Albach has dedicated a lot of hours to suicide prevention in this city.
“You can make a difference in people’s lives if you can help them connect or reconnect with hope,” says Dammy, who is now the coordinator of VCH’s S.A.F.E.R. counseling service, a program that offers counselling for people thinking about suicide or engaging in suicidal behaviours, as well as for family and friends concerned for someone at risk or are grieving over a suicide death.
“Suicide is the triumph of despair over hope. I want hope to win.”
Last month, the Mental Health Commission of Canada reviewed its focus for the next 24 months, moving suicide prevention to number four on its list of five priorities.
As current president of the Canadian Association of Suicide Prevention, Dammy is pleased to see that long-term and on-going efforts from across the country (those that resulted in Bill C-300, a national framework for suicide prevention that passed into law just a few months ago) are also influencing the focus of the Mental Health Commission.
“It’s enormously important,” she says, “because it’s a shift that will bring more focused attention to the issue of suicide prevention and will support building connections in a fragmented system – to those disconnected pockets of promising practice that exist throughout the country.”
Shift in thinking
She says that since the 70s, she’s slowly seen a shift take place in the minds of the government and the public.
“There’s an increasing awareness now, an understanding and acceptance of mental illness – there’s a belief we can do something,” she explains. “There is more openness to talking about the painful issues that push towards suicide as an exit strategy.”
She explains that a lot has changed over the years in suicide prevention; especially with the introduction of treatments like cognitive behavioral therapy and dialectical behavior therapy, and improvements in effective risk assessment and treatment for people with anxiety and depression. But the biggest difference is the increased discussion around the once-stigmatized topic.
“There’s more dialogue now,” she says. “People are more prepared to come forward to seek help.”
Devastating impact
And while suicide rates haven’t gone up, she says the current numbers still have a profound impact.
“More than 500 people take their own lives in B.C. each year,” she says. “And if 10 people are intimately impacted by each of these losses, that’s 5,000 people in one year who’s lives are tragically altered. And that is devastating.”
So why is she so passionate about helping people who are thinking about suicide as a way out?
“Suicide is the result of pain, hopelessness and despair. Yet it is almost always preventable through caring, compassion, commitment and community.” Dammy says. “I always wanted to do something that made a difference. I’ve always had an ability to help people make connections and to use that skill in service of suicide prevention has been very meaningful for me.”