(Victoria, British Columbia) A five-year study of youth suicide in British Columbia found that 70 per cent of young people who committed suicide reached out to someone for help before their final act.

The B.C. Coroners Service report makes 17 recommendations that all hinge on preventing youth suicide and making parents, teachers, families, coaches and governments more aware of suicide signs among children.

The report, released Tuesday, said the B.C. government should establish a focused and dedicated suicide prevention program after 81 children killed themselves between 2003 and 2007.

“We want to get the message out to kids and families to start talking about child safety and well-being, and encourage families to talk,” said Kellie Kilpatrick, a spokeswoman for the Coroners Service’s Child Death Review Unit.

“If this report today results in one family or one youth making a phone call for help, then that’s a really good thing,” she said.

B.C.’s Children’s Representative Mary Ellen Turpel-Lafond called the coroners service report valuable and thorough.

She is currently reviewing nine youth suicides and 45 attempted suicides in British Columbia since last June.

“We have a cluster,” she said. “That’s a sufficient group that we’ve started an aggregate suicide review, looking at primarily mental health supports to adolescents,” Turpel-Lafond said.

The coroners service report found the highest young people at risk for suicide were males, aboriginal children and youth, and gay, lesbian and bisexual youth who were questioning their sexuality.

It also found among those groups three main risk profiles: children with chronic mental health problems; children who experience ongoing family or relationship problems; and children who experienced a stressful event.

Challenges at school and a history of drug or alcohol use were also identified as suicide risk factors.

The report, `Looking for Something to Look Forward To,’ showed that suicide prevention is an issue that must spread far beyond families, Kilpatrick said.

Suicide prevention must encompass the expertise of social and clinical groups, including doctors, psychologists and social workers, she said.

Kilpatrick wants the signs that a young person is at risk of suicide spread in schools, in playgrounds and in the meeting rooms of the legislature.

“That’s what the deaths of these kids have shown us is that it’s a shared responsibility,” said Kilpatrick.

She said British Columbia has good resources to respond to the complex issue of youth suicide, but the report calls for a more consolidated approach to suicide prevention to allow families and youth to seek help.

“One place where families and kids and caregivers can go to access the resources, because right now they are spread out in different places and in different locations,” Kilpatrick said.

About 200 children commit suicide in Canada every year, 14 of those in B.C.

Suicide is the second leading cause of death among B.C. children aged 12 to 18 years.

The report enlisted 23 panel members who included mental health experts, injury prevention specialists, physicians, educators, law enforcement personnel, parents, researchers and First Nations representatives.

The Child Death Review Unit looks at all child deaths in the province, to better understand how and why children die, and to use findings to take action to prevent other deaths.

The panel recommended the government devote as much attention to a suicide awareness program as it does to programs promoting physical fitness among children.

The panel also called on the government to modify five B.C. bridges responsible for 50 per cent of suicide deaths by people who jumped between 1991 and 2007.

Kilpatrick said the Transportation Ministry has been reviewing making bridges suicide safe.

Transportation Minister Kevin Falcon said the government is examining erecting suicide prevention barriers on Vancouver’s Lions Gate and Ironworkers Memorial bridges, but a consultant’s report won’t be ready until 2009.

He said six crisis line telephones will be installed on the Lions Gate Bridge in January.

The panel said the province needs to start a training program so teachers, coaches, police officers and others who deal with children know how to recognize kids who could commit suicide.