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Today, Member of Parliament Pat Davidson issued a call for those impacted by suicide across our community to consider sharing their experiences in a confidential manner to the MP so that the information can be included in the final documentation submission to the Mental Health Commission of Canada of the “308 Conversations: Sarnia-Lambton” event being held on June 25^th in Sarnia.

The event is designed to bring together mental health groups that deal with suicide, allowing a compilation of briefing materials from over 25 leading Mental Health advocacy organizations from Sarnia-Lambton who deal with suicide on the front lines.  These groups will be sharing their best practices as well as obstacles to achieving success in addressing the issue of suicide across our community. The call for public involvement is being conducted electronically so as to protect the confidentiality of those impacted by suicide.

Pat Davidson stated that “Although much work has been done on the mental health file, we are seeing a real push starting up to specifically address suicide and begin the work of developing a national Suicide strategy as we begin to compile materials for the Mental Health Commission of Canada as part of the 308 Conversations Initiative.”  She also noted that “ensuring that viewpoints not only from community groups tasked with responding to mental health issues and suicide, but from actual families and others in our community that have been touched by such tragic occurrences will allow us to fully inform the Mental Health Commission of Canada how our Community feels about the issue of suicide and what steps we feel need to be taken to address this serious issue.”

Community members are asked to send forward their own personal submissions about their experiences with suicide and how our community can better respond to this pressing issue prior to June 24^th, 2014.  They can be sent electronically to the following email address: [email protected]. As well, hard-copy submissions can be sent (postage-free) to the Member of Parliament’s office at: 1000 Finch Drive, Unit 2, Sarnia ON, N7S 6G5.