On Sept. 10, World Suicide Prevention Day, the Centre de prévention de suicide de Québec (CPSQ) is inviting the community at large to a walk in the park. The walk will begin at 6 p.m. at the service pavilion of Parc de l’Anse-à-Cartier in Limoilou. Trained suicide prevention intervention workers will be onsite to talk to people who may need help for themselves or someone they know, and to dispel common myths about suicide.

The CPSQ, the oldest suicide prevention resource centre in Canada, offers phone intervention and one-on-one in-person support in French and English, as well as French-language support groups, to anyone in the Capitale-Nationale region, from Portneuf to Charlevoix, who needs help for themselves or a loved one, CPSQ director general Lynda Poirier told the QCT. Intervention workers at the centre provide phone support to people at risk of suicide or worried about someone they know; train peer support volunteers known as Sentinelles or Gatekeepers; give suicide prevention coaching to health care workers; and hold counselling sessions in schools, workplaces or communities affected by suicide. They have also held an annual event to mark World Suicide Prevention Day for the past several years.

“The march is in a very peaceful spot,” Poirier said. “It is a moment of exchange between people who have been affected, who are asking questions, who may have lost someone, or who are wondering how we work and the services we offer. Everyone who comes becomes a suicide prevention ambassador and feels less alone if they have already lost someone. She said the event was “a chance to create a safety net” around people at risk.

“There’s a kiosk at the departure point with coffee and cookies and things like that, and intervention workers will be there to answer people’s questions and dispel myths,” she said.

One of the most tenacious myths about suicide is that taking one’s own life is either a courageous act of self-sacrifice or a coward’s way out. According to Poirier, it is neither. “Suicide is what happens when someone is in major, major distress and doesn’t have options.”

Consequently, she said, threats of suicide should never be lumped in with manipulation or melodrama. “Take [threats] seriously anytime you hear them, and if you don’t know what to do, call our intervention line or get in touch with us via chat.” Poirier emphasized that the CPSQ intervention line is not a “crisis line” – “you don’t need to be actively in crisis to call us; [the line] is available to anyone who needs help or wants to know how to help someone else.”