Suicide plagues residential school

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More than a dozen female students attending the Indian Residential School have attempted suicide over the past year - a statistic that has alarmed school and hospital administrators.

One girl died and officials haven't been able to pin down what's causing the incidents in the Native-run school of almost 200 students.

"I don't think it's a result of anything we're doing out here, I just can't see it," said Vern Bellegarde, executive director of the school, about 90 kilometres northeast of Regina.

"I think in many cases the parents send their children here hoping we're going to change them totally, and we can't. We've got to have the support of the parents. Without this type of support we're kind of dealing in muddy waters, so to speak."

Statistics from the Fort Qu'Appelle Indian Hospital, which serves the town and seven reserves, link the school to an alarming rate of suicides and attempts. The 13 attempts, two repeated attempts and one suicide

- all involving female students aged 14 to 17 - represent almost one-third of the total suicides or attempts recorded by the hospital this year.

More students in the school have attempted suicide than are expected to graduate this year. Bellegarde said he doesn't believe the incidents - a combination of drug overdoses and wrist-slashing - are the result of suicide pact, although he concedes there's a lot of peer pressure in a closed-school environment.

Most of the suicide attempts were made after a 17-year-old killed herself at home last January. Students at residential schools spend 10 months of the year there and are only allowed home on weekends and statutory holidays.

"I really think in most cases it's an attention-getting device - a call for help - and it's working as such," Bellegarde said.

The school automatically suspends any student who attempts suicide. That policy was adopted earlier this year as a part of a two-fold plan.

"We're saying you, as a parent, get your house in order and do what you have to do to deal with the problem," said Bellegarde. "She's not going to spend the rest of her life with us, so the parents better be ready to do something.

The other half of the strategy concentrates on encouraging students to talk about their problems before they get out of hand. The school, along with the Indian Hospital in Fort Qu'Appelle, has enlisted Native elders and counsellors to talk to students. It has also sought advice from suicide crisis teams in Regina and Fort Qu'Appelle.

"In many case, we're giving students a chance to unload some of their problems, and I think a lot of the problems stem from the home - be it alcohol, physical or sexual abuse in the family," said Bellegarde.

But a parent of a teenage survivor of a suicide attempt said the school hasn't done enough to identify and correct problems.

"I think a lot of times there has been a cry for help that has gone unanswered," said the mother, who asked not to be identified.

"The staff are too comfortable in their jobs and are unwilling to seek creative solutions to a problem that has been around for a long time."

She said counselling provided by the school has helped her daughter cope with some of the pressures that led to her drug-overdose suicide attempt. But she also recommends the school set up a parents' advisory board and adopt more cultural programs to boost students' self-esteem.

Bellegarde said the school is a safe haven from troubled home lives for many young people.

"I know a lot of kids don't want to go home on pay days because in many cases they leave here on Friday and don't see their parents until Sunday night."

Lisa LaRocque, the school's health care attendant, said many students were attempting suicide for seemingly trivial reasons, such as homework or boyfriends problems.

"In past years, we might have had one student who would be talking about committing suicide. We would deal with it and the problem would go away. But it

seems the problem has come to a head."

The fderal government turned the school over to Star Blanket Indian Band in 1987, a couple of decades after dismantling the former church-run school.