An all-day conference on suicide and depression, held for the third straight year in Olds, was the best yet, according to Andrea Hawiuk, who organized it with help from a few others.
"It was 100 per cent. I mean, over 100 per cent. Every one of them were good, but this one was the best of all," Hawiuk says.
The Conversation Has To Happen...Again took place Sept. 8 at the Pomeroy Inn & Suites. It featured seven speakers.
Speakers included two local residents: Peter Premachuk, who spoke about the impact on his family of his brother's suicide and Olds and District Hospice Society vice-president Kathy Kemmere, who discussed grief.
"I'm just reading the reviews and they're outstanding reviews. They just were thrilled to death. There's not a negative (response) in the whole reviews," Hawiuk says.
"Just wow, like, 'gosh, we need more of this.' 'Thank you for doing this.' 'Maybe we could have a fundraiser to make sure that we have money to keep doing it.'"
Hawiuk said Kevin Hines, who tried to commit suicide in September 2000 by jumping off the Golden Gate Bridge in San Franciso, was also a big draw.
About 210 people attended the event. Hawiuk said that's more than came last year, but less than the approximately 280 who attended the first one.
She plans to organize a fourth one for 2019.
One change Hawiuk is considering is whether to have representatives of the mental health profession speak.
However, she's concerned about veering from the current format in which people who have personally been affected by suicide and/or depression tell their stories. She says that's a major strength of the conferences.
"I think that's the reason it's so successful, because the people then, they really gravitate to the speakers and they get something out of them," Hawiuk says.
"At break time, they're just as busy as can be. The resource tables, they clean them right off. The people just take everything.
"This conference is people who have walked in those shoes. You can't just get a textbook up there and read out of it, right? You have to have lived this journey before you can speak," she adds.
Hawiuk got the idea for the first Conversation conference after several suicides occurred in the community.
She's hoping the conferences can continue to be held every year for years to come. But she also notes she's not getting any younger. So at some point, someone else might have to take on more of the responsibility for organizing it.
