Mental health and suicide prevention tool kit for local transgender community in works

A local organization that supports Waterloo region's LGBTQ+ community wants to develop a mental health and suicide prevention tool kit for the local transgender community.

Melissa Paige Kennedy, transgender services co-ordinator for Spectrum, said increased isolation and additional barriers brought on by pandemic closures were some of the reasons behind the organization's decision to launch the project now.

"We're all going through emotional difficulties with isolation and to some degree we have been able to address that through the online sessions that we have continued through the pandemic," she said.

Spectrum kept its seven support sessions for the trans community running during the pandemic, but Kennedy said meeting virtually often doesn't go far enough and it can be challenging or unsafe for some members to attend.

"We could see that the isolation from not being able to get together physically was also having an affect on the group of people who were attending the Zoom meetings. It also means it's harder to have those private conversations," Kennedy added.

Spectrum put out a request for proposal for the development of the project in April and are currently finalizing who will take on the project.

Kennedy said the group that will be awarded the work will create a survey and conduct in-depth interviews with participants, which will help measure the level of abuse, violence and self-harm within the transgender community in Waterloo region.

That information will then be used to create a tool kit specifically for the transgender community. Kennedy said the hope is that the kit will also help guide the mental health, medical and social services sectors locally.

"We felt that there was a need for something that would address both audiences: Those in crisis and and those helping those in crisis," she said.

Kennedy hopes the project mirrors a similar program out of California dedicated to elementary and high school students, which shares strategies on how to identify signs of self-harm or suicidal thoughts, as well as tools for prevention and postvention.

'Absolutely' a need

Robb Travers, professor and chair of the department of health sciences at Wilfrid Laurier University, said there is a need to have this kind of resource available for the transgender community.

Travers and his team published the findings of a research project called the Outlook Study in 2017 which looked into the well being and victimization of LGBTQ+ people in Waterloo region. 

"Social inclusion and feeling like you're part of society and feeling like you matter as a human being has a direct link to suicidal feeling decreasing among transgender people," he said, in addition to having good social supports.

The study found that transgender people have a lower sense of belonging in the community compared to cisgender individuals and that transgender women were perceived to be the least accepted group in Waterloo region.

Travers said he and his team did follow up interviews with 33 transgender individuals living in region last year and  results showed that though discrimination may not be as prevalent, many of the participants said the anticipated fear of being discriminated was just as bad on their mental health and well being.

"We concluded from both the Outlook Study and this more recent study ... that discrimination may not be as high as we thought it might be, but it is still very much exists and that anticipatory fear is a constant and daily concern for people," he said.

"That is damaging, when people experience that. Absolutely there is a need for what Spectrum is doing."

Kennedy said Spectrum hopes to have the tool kit ready this fall.