Where the Parties Stand on Suicide Prevention in Schools

[Editor’s note: The following story discusses youth suicide.]

After their teenage daughter died by suicide last December, Laura and David Donovan are seeking an overhaul of how suicide prevention supports are designed and delivered in B.C. schools.

Two months before her death, 16-year-old Felicity Donovan told her school counsellor she was thinking about killing herself.

Together Felicity and the school counsellor determined the counsellor would ask Felicity’s parents about connecting with her out-of-school counsellor, and would introduce Felicity to the district’s substance use liaison.

But the Donovans say they did not receive a request to connect the school counsellor with Felicity’s out-of-school counsellor, nor did the school counsellor treat the situation like the emergency it was. While the school councillor did let Felicity’s parents know by phone that Felicity was having suicidal thoughts, they told her parents that Felicity was not considered at risk.

The Donovans allege the school didn’t follow the Surrey school district’s own suicide prevention protocol, which dictates schools must inform parents when a student shares they are thinking about killing themselves. They feel the counsellor minimized Felicity’s suicide risk.

Two months later, Felicity killed herself.

Since Felicity’s death, her parents have been advocating for change in how mental health and suicide prevention is addressed in schools.

Specifically they want to see all B.C. schools be fully funded and equipped to give all students and staff suicide prevention and intervention training based on “current evidence-based practices,” including but not limited to support from Indigenous knowledge keepers. Laura is Abenaki of the Odanak First Nation, as was Felicity.

The provincial Mental Health in Schools Strategy, introduced and implemented in schools under the NDP, sees schools mainly tackle students’ mental health and well-being through curriculum. More severe mental health issues are to be addressed collaboratively between districts, other ministries and community partners, such Fraser Health’s Suicide Prevention, Education and Counselling program.

“We rely on cross-government and community resources to provide more intensive supports,” the strategy reads.

The Donovans also want the Education Ministry to audit the suicide prevention supports Felicity received.

The Donovans have met with Premier David Eby and Education and Child Care Minister Rachna Singh to push for these changes. The Donovans said Eby agreed with the push for “evidence-based” suicide prevention practices and training in schools, and committed to action but was vague on details.

In the midst of the provincial election, they’ve received a letter of support for implementing their ideas from BC Green Party Leader Sonia Furstenau — one of 26 such letters, including one from the BC Nurses' Union — and have been in contact with the BC Conservatives to arrange to speak with leader John Rustad.

The Tyee also reached out to each party leader to ask about how, if they formed government, they would address suicide prevention in schools.

Suicide is the second leading cause of death for youth and young adults in Canada, but for Indigenous youth and adults under 45, due to the ongoing impacts of colonization, it is the leading cause of death.

The Donovans consider addressing suicide prevention in schools a part of truth and reconciliation in education.

“It seems to me like there’s not the space for suicide prevention, specifically, in the schools,” Laura said, adding kids talk to each other about suicide. It’s the adults who don’t talk to kids about it.

“We’re required to have our children in these institutions, and these institutions therefore have a responsibility to ensure the safety of our children,” Laura said.

‘Felicity made a safe place here’

Felicity Donovan was many things to her loved ones: proud member of the Odanak First Nation; daughter; athlete; leader-in-training; friend; sister; and a great listener with a wicked sense of humour.

But at heart, her parents say, Felicity was a caregiver.

“She was aware of friends that may need support,” said David. Like her genderfluid friend who felt unsafe talking about her gender identity or using her chosen name at home or at school.

Felicity opened the Donovan's family home to her friend.

“Felicity made a safe place here: her friend could come and be herself and use her own name,” David said.

But in summer 2023, Felicity began spending more time alone in her room. Her parents weren’t immediately alarmed; she was a teenager after all, and they remembered acting similarly at her age.

Laura set Felicity up with a counsellor.

When school started again, Felicity, entering Grade 11, began to struggle with her classes. She told her parents she was having substance use issues.

The Donovans reached out to Felicity’s school counsellor for help with her mental health, schoolwork and substance use.

In early October, Felicity’s psychology teacher contacted her parents to signal that Felicity was struggling. Unbeknowst to her parents at the time, Felicity had made a suicide attempt just days earlier. She later told her parents she hadn’t really wanted to die.

“She just had a hard time, and she knew that we loved her and cared about her,” said Laura. “She said that at school sometimes, she just didn’t feel like she was liked.”

Felicity was put on medication for her mental health, and doctors told her parents to take Felicity to the ER if she continued to struggle.

Later that same month, the school counsellor called the Donovans to pick Felicity up from school, saying she was experiencing suicidal ideation.

“All the school counsellor said was that she’d talked about it, but she had no plans,” David recalled.

What her parents didn’t know was that Felicity and the school counsellor had together talked to a staff member at Fraser Health’s Suicide Prevention, Education and Counselling program earlier that day.

The Donovans obtained a transcript of the conversation between the school counsellor, Felicity and the program staffer, from the program months after Felicity’s death. They shared the transcript with The Tyee.

The transcript shows Felicity’s stated intention to make a safety plan and share it with her parents that day. It also shows the school counsellor was to connect Felicity with the school’s substance use liaison and follow up with Felicity’s parents about connecting with her outside counsellor.

But the Donovans say the counsellor didn’t ask them to be connected to Felicity’s other counsellor, nor did they adequately convey the risk of her suicidal thoughts that day.

“She didn’t feel safe. And we didn’t have that information,” David said, adding Felicity was not connected with the substance use liaison, either.

Through her parents' efforts, Felicity had been connected with Fraser Health’s Short Term Assessment Response Team (START), through which she had started weekly counselling.

Her parents thought, up to the day she died, that Felicity’s mental health was improving.

She came home from school one day shortly before winter break in December and “told us how she joined rugby, how she sang at school, how she was looking forward to going to her sister’s on the weekend. Just really excited and happy,” said David.

Later that day, Felicity died by suicide.

How suicide is and isn’t addressed in schools

In January 2024, a month after Felicity passed, the Donovans met with their daughter’s school principal to find out more information about her state of mind before her death.

They found out there was no follow-up from the school counsellor with Felicity’s other counsellor, and no substance use support provided, David says.

“They were aware of the steps they needed to take,” said David. “They just didn’t do it.”

The Donovans say they understand school staff are “under-trained and unsupported,” David said.

They say the education ministry and Premier David Eby bear some of the responsibility, “because they’re responsible for ensuring schools are safe,” David said.

“It’s not acceptable that Indigenous children are dying at a higher rate,” David said. “They need to see every child matters, today.”

In an emailed statement to The Tyee, a representative for the Surrey School District expressed their condolences to the Donovans for Felicity’s death.

“Surrey Schools has multi-tiered systems and processes designed to identify and engage students and families requiring suicide prevention services. The district support these students and families within the school environment by providing access to the appropriate agencies,” the statement read.

The district says it updated the language in their critical incidents policies and started a review of their procedures and practices following Felicity’s death.

The Tyee requested an interview with Education Minister Rachna Singh in September, but she was not made available. Instead her office sent an emailed statement.

“We reached out to the Surrey School District and we know they are taking action to learn from this tragedy and support their students, and that Fraser Health has taken steps to update their response protocols since this tragedy,” Singh’s statement reads. “My ministry is also exploring what else can be done provincially.”

Singh did not address the specific changes the Donovans are requesting, but pointed to her ministry’s ongoing Mental Health in Schools strategy, which does not mention suicide or self-harm.

A separate physical education teachers’ resource guide on student health is available, which includes tips on talking to students about suicide and self-harm both as a curriculum topic and if a teacher suspects a student is in trouble.

Singh also cited the $3 million annual Mental Health in School Grant, which makes funds available to the 60 public school districts in order to improve school-based mental health and substance use supports and resources. As well, 270 additional teacher counsellors and psychologists have been hired since 2016, bringing the total number to just under 1,000 positions for over 600,000 students.

Integrated Child and Youth Teams, which include youth mental health and substance use clinicians, youth clinical counsellors, and youth and family support workers, will be available in one-third of districts by 2025.

There are also two Provincial School Outreach teams that provide school districts with additional in-person and online access to school psychologists and counsellors. So far the teams have provided support to 45 schools in 22 districts.

Finally the provincial ERASE (Expect Respect & A Safe Education) program website includes information about mental health and substance use for students and adults. A section on “suicide prevention and life promotion” provides suicide prevention hotline numbers for students and staff to call, as well as additional teaching resources for educators.

Students are also able to use the site’s anonymous reporting tool to reach their school’s safety coordinator or a counsellor.

The NDP’s platform, released after the Donovans met with Eby and Singh, promises to ensure every public school has a counsellor, and to train all school staff with age-appropriate resources to talk to students about illicit drug use.

Where the Greens, Conservatives stand

In addition to leader Sonia Furstenau’s letter of support for suicide prevention reforms in schools, the BC Greens’ platform includes promises to reduce the student-to-school counsellor ratio and hire additional counsellors, psychologists and social workers for schools.

The Greens don’t cite any target numbers. But in 2022 the president of the BC School Counsellors Association said the current ratio is one counsellor for every 693 students in public schools, way above the BC Teachers’ Federation’s recommended ratio of one counsellor for every 250 students.

At the Union of BC Municipalities conference in Vancouver last month, The Tyee asked BC Conservative leader John Rustad how his party would ensure there are culturally relevant mental health and suicide prevention supports in schools, if his party was to form government.

“Part of what we need to do to build out our school system is build out a very strong anti-bullying program so that every child can feel safe in this province,” Rustad said.

“And we also need to ensure that we have support in place, not just for the child but also the extended family, where there are issues that need to be addressed.”

On Oct. 8, the Conservatives put out a press release saying they would “work to ensure schools have improved access to mental health professionals,” but did not provide detail about how they would improve this access or what specifically it would entail.

The Donovans want politicians and education leaders to view a lack of evidence-based, evaluated suicide prevention support in B.C. schools the same way they view the forced attendance of Indigenous children in residential schools.

“Getting them to shift and see how wrong that is, that Indigenous children are dying,” David said. “What we took away from meeting with the school principal was: these kids aren’t safe.”

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