Today is World Suicide Prevention Day and the Weyburn branch of the Canadian Mental Health Association is doing what they can to get the difficult conversation going in hopes of helping to prevent as many deaths as possible.

"CMHA Weyburn branch will be participating by posting to our Facebook page some different tips and ways that we can go about supporting maybe somebody that might be having thoughts of suicide," shared Tasha Collins, Program Director. "So we'll be posting about recognizing what might some signs and symptoms of thoughts of suicide, reaching out to somebody and having a conversation about suicide, connecting someone that might be having thoughts of suicide to somebody that can help, and maybe even working with them to create a safety plan."

Collins added that CMHA does Safe Talk and Assist training sessions throughout the year and said that the next one should be happening in the fall.

"This day is about bringing attention and awareness to suicide and having it be something that we're able to talk about and that we're able to reduce the stigma around," Collins expressed. "Every year we try to have something going on for World Suicide Prevention Day such as training that we've done in the past on that day and this year we're just participating with our Facebook posts. We'll have some tips and some helpful strategies for everybody. Those maybe having thoughts of suicide as well as somebody that might be a support person for someone that's having those thoughts."

She went on to say that many if not the majority of people have had thoughts of suicide at some point in their lives and expressed that she would like to see that talked about more openly in society one day.

Feel free to follow CMHA Weyburn on Facebook and you can also visit their official website.

Below you can listen to more information from Tasha Collins on what CMHA can do to help people that might be struggling with thoughts of suicide.