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CMHA Alberta Division

CMHA Programs and Services

The Canadian Mental Health Association across Alberta offers a variety of training, workshops and certifications on different topics and in different formats depending on your needs and time availability. Follow the links below for details.

Straight Talk

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Preventing Suicide in Youth

Straight Talk is an interactive half-day workshop created for individuals working with youth aged 12 to 18.

Straight Talk encompasses the developmental, cognitive, and emotional differences found within this age group in presenting strategies to strengthen the protective factors of youth at risk of suicide. Relevant intervention strategies are explored through videos and case studies.

Intervention approaches build on the skills taught in the Applied Suicide Intervention Skills Training (ASIST) as they apply to youth.

Learning Objectives

At the end of this workshop, participants will be able to:

  • Recognize the prevalence of youth suicide;
  • Identify suicidal and self-harm behaviour in youth;
  • Identify protective factors, risk factors, and warning signs in youth; and
  • Confidently transfer care of a youth to a caregiver (including but not limited to a parent, guardian, professional, or community resource).

Audience

Ages 18+
This workshop will benefit any adult working with youth aged 12 – 18.

Participants can include but not limited to: parents and caregivers; family and friends; natural helpers and advisors; educators and ministers; health practitioners; justice, law enforcers, emergency workers, and community volunteers.

Information provided is appropriate for beginner and intermediate social work practice.

Certificate and Accreditation

All participants will receive a participation certificate upon completing 4 hours of instruction.

Special Accommodations

Please contact the Centre for Suicide Prevention if you need specific accommodations.

Please visit the Centre for Suicide Prevention (CSP)’s website to register for this training

Suicide to Hope

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Recovery and Growth Workshop

Suicide to Hope is a one-day workshop designed for clinicians and caregivers working with those recently at risk of and currently safe from suicide. It provides tools to help these caregivers and persons with experiences of suicide work together to develop achievable and significant recovery and growth goals.

The focus of this workshop is recovery and growth for persons recently at risk of and currently safe from suicide.

Workshop process

During suicide to Hope (s2H), participants reflect upon their qualities as caregivers—the beliefs, values, and attitudes they bring to the relationship. They also learn about various meanings of suicide experiences and discover the opportunities for recovery and growth they present. More specifically, suicide to Hope is structured around a three-phase “Pathway to Hope” model. The first phase, understanding, focuses on exploring and describing barriers to recovery and growth. The second phase, planning, focuses on formulating recovery and growth goals and plans. The third phase, implementing, focuses on monitoring progress and reviewing the process. Clinicians and professional caregivers who attend a s2H workshop learn how to use this model collaboratively with those they serve. The workshop is highly interactive with a mix of large group and small group discussion and simulations.

Learning Objectives

In the course of the suicide to Hope workshop, participants will learn to:

  • Describe how suicide experiences provide an opportunity for recovery and growth
  • Recognize how their attitudes might impact the recovery of the people they are trying to help
  • Understand a schematic of common issues and related recovery and growth opportunities
  • Apply a model for setting recovery and growth goals and a framework for monitoring and coordinating recovery and growth work

Audience

Clinicians and caregivers who work with persons recently at risk of and currently safe from suicide.

Please visit the Centre for Suicide Prevention (CSP)’s website to register for this training

Tattered Teddies

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Preventing Suicide in Children

Suicidal behaviour in children age 12 or younger is a subject of growing concern for those who work with children. Suicidal thoughts and attempts in children have sometimes been overlooked, denied or ignored. Tattered Teddies is an interactive half-day workshop which examines warning signs in a child and explores intervention strategies through stories and case studies.

Intervention approaches build on the skills taught in the Applied Suicide Intervention Skills Training (ASIST) as they apply to children.

Learning Objectives:

At the end of this workshop, participants will be able to:

  • Appreciate that children can experience suicide ideation;
  • Identify protective factors, risk factors and warning signs in children; and
  • Confidently transfer care of a child to a caregiver (including but not limited to a parent, guardian, professional, or community resource).

Audience

Ages 18+
This workshop provides information and offers practical approaches for those working with children who are working with children who are age 12 or younger and who may be at risk of suicide.

Participants can include but not limited to: parents and caregivers; family and friends; natural helpers and advisors; educators and ministers; health practitioners; justice, law enforcers, emergency workers, and community volunteers.

Information provided is appropriate for beginner and intermediate social work practice.

Certificate and Accreditation

All participants will receive a participation certificate upon completing 4 hours of instruction hours.

Special Accommodations

Please contact the Centre for Suicide Prevention if you need specific accommodations.

Please visit the Centre for Suicide Prevention (CSP)’s website to register for this training

Walk With Me

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Indigenous Suicide Bereavement

This workshop is intended for Indigenous caregivers working in Indigenous communities.

The Walk With Me workshop draws heavily on Indigenous culture and tradition as it seeks to take participants through the cycle of suicide grief. Indigenous communities are frequently struck with a series of suicide deaths in a short period of time, each of these deaths adding to the already present burden of grief and loss. Bringing community members together for a day of hope and healing builds understanding and strength. This workshop takes the participants on a journey from the past, to the present and looks to the future; it creates a context for people to examine where they are in the grief cycle and how they can move forward to hope.

It is recommended that participants of this workshop also attend the 2-day ASIST workshop for skills-based suicide intervention training.

Workshop Topics:

  • Stories of Indigenous experiences
  • Talking openly about suicide
  • Suicide bereavement model
  • How we heal
  • Developing grief work strategies
  • Self-care

Audience

Ages 18+
This workshop provides information and practical approaches for understanding and dealing with our own grief and to better understand others’ grief. It is NOT a replacement for grief counselling nor does it train participants to become counsellors. It is recommended that participants wait a period of time after losing a loved one to suicide before attending this workshop.

Information provided is appropriate for beginner and intermediate social work practice.

Certificate

All participants will receive a participation certificate upon completing 7 hours of instruction.

Special Accommodations

Please contact the Centre for Suicide Prevention if you need specific accommodations.

Please visit the Centre for Suicide Prevention (CSP)’s website to register for this training