Town of Banff

Storytelling: A Suicide Prevention Tool

“I will never forget these stories”. [Banff student workshop participant]

• Suicide is the leading cause of injury death in Albert [Alberta Centre for Injury Control and Research]
• Worldwide someone dies by suicide every 40 seconds [World Health Organization]

"Travelling: A Story of Friendship, Life, Suicide and Loss" is a 30 minute story of weaved vignettes about people known to local storyteller Mandi Kujawa and their experiences with suicide.  It is delivered annually in fall to grade 10 students and an open public session. 

It's never easy talking about difficult subjects like suicide but the storytelling workshops have been very successful. From evaluation the storytelling has shown to be an impactful tool to educate people about suicide prevention.

• 350 workshop participants to date
• 85% were positive about storytelling as a way to learn about suicide prevention
• 71% increased their knowledge of suicide prevention as a result of the workshop
• Over 1/3 of students want more discussion about suicide, depression or stress
• They would remember The Travelling Song, the story, everything & how to help, opportunity to talk.
• They didn’t like that it was depressing, that it was about suicide & death, the end discussion.
• 276 views on YouTube to date

Thanks to generous funding from Alberta Centre for Injury Control & Research and the Banff Soroptomists that made the project possible.

Thanks to project partners:

• Bow Valley Victim Services
• Alberta Health Services -  Mental Health
• Banff Community High School

For more details on "Travelling: A Story of Friendship, Life, Suicide and Loss", contact community.services@banff.ca