For those who have lost a loved one to suicide, finding the right support network is not easy, according to Victim Services of York Region executive director Gillian Freeman.
The stigma associated with suicide can leave those people not fitting in with grief groups, Freeman said. There was a need to provide more to help those people find a safe place where they could get support, she said.
“We felt there was a significant gap in our community,” she said. “We wanted to address that gap … We were seeing our clients struggling. We thought, particularly during COVID when people were isolated and anxious and didn’t have a chance to communally grieve, that it was ever more important (to) put forward an application to fund a program.”
Today on World Suicide Prevention Day, Sept. 10, the organization celebrated a successful year of its grief support program. Newmarket-Aurora MPP Dawn Gallagher Murphy held a recognition event for the two-year $155,300 grant provided to the program through the Ontario Trillium Foundation’s Resilient Communities Fund in 2023.
That funding enabled Victim Services to hire a grief specialist and expand the program. Over a year into the program, they have assisted 800 clients bereaved by suicide, 662 suicide support calls, 305 suicide appointments, 34 on scenes for suicides and 1,711 traumatic grief suicide responses.
Gallagher Murphy recounted getting to sit in on one of the group therapy sessions.
“Some of them it was their son. Some of them it was their wife or husband. I’ll tell you, that truly opened my eyes,” she said. “The pain they felt. But at the same time, you had this group of people who had come together on their journey of healing, and I think that’s what was so impactful as well.”
Freeman said members of the group provide support, comfort and care for one another.
“This group is like no other in York Region,” she said.
Grief specialist Chanda Pundir said these group sessions provide a physical and emotional space for people to express their feelings of grief.
“This is so important, especially when we’re struggling naturally with thoughts, emotions that are strange, scary and often deeply upsetting,” she said. “It’s imperative as the bereaved need a place to feel love and feel hope and healing … (It’s) about changing the narrative by talking about suicide. Today, we are changing the narrative. We’re changing the societal stigma about it being quiet and shameful to one of acceptance and compassion.”
The program did exist in a smaller form before the funding, but Freeman said that grant enabled them to expand it and bring on a grief specialist. The program has grant funding through 2025, but Freeman said they hope to continue forward with it.
“Our hopes are to continue to provide this vital service to our community,” she said. “Hopefully we’re ready to try and figure out how we can continue this program now that we’ve realized how imperative it is.”
