Advocacy

Your Life Counts takes the responsibility of Advocacy seriously. It’s a precious responsibility. We try to help as best we can within the limits of our own resources as an agency. Working together with other agencies in partnership so much more can be accomplished and precious lives can be saved.

Personal Advocacy

YLC works tirelessly in our communities helping youth and families to access help and support as needed. Sometimes vulnerable people are not able to advocate for themselves – they are not able to ask for help and/ or access emergency services. They may have difficulty making a doctor’s appointment, dealing with social agencies, getting help from ‘the system’. YLC helps advocate for the vulnerable, building trusting and dependable relationships that help ensure individuals are not left on the sidelines and forgotten.

Your Life Counts tackles the root causes of suicide, digging deep into the issues that lead individuals to engage in the self destructive behaviours that can lead to suicide. Your Life Counts has a history stretching back to 2000 of tackling the difficult issues. Bullying is a major problem of our time and is not limited to children and youth. YLC is on the front lines of talking about, researching and tackling the scourge of bullying in partnership with our partners in the community. It’s only by working together that we will truly get anything meaningful accomplished.

Working in collaboration with other trusted individuals and agencies, Your Life Counts steadies and supports individuals at an emotional and practical level, guiding them towards help and support in their own communities. Referrals to specialized agencies/ supports are made wherever possible.

Professional Advocacy

BILL c300

On 14th December 2012, the Canadian Parliament signed into law Bill c300 – ‘an Act respecting the establishment of a national framework for suicide prevention’.

The role of YLC Founder in the advocacy towards accomplishing Bill c300 is best described by Dr Adrian Hill, Chair of the YLC National & International Advisory Board and former President of the Canadian Association for Suicide Prevention:

Background to C300 and the key involvement of Your Life Counts:

There is a saying “success has many fathers while failure is an orphan…” Perhaps this has never been so true than in the case of Bill c300. There are so many stories about how Bill c300 came to be and there are so many people laying claim to it. This is perhaps understandable at some level as for decades so little progress was made with this crucial issue in the Federal Parliament of Canada. However, if you really want to know the truth of how this key legislation came about, here is a precis from Dr Adrian Hill…

“In 2012 over ten years of hard work coalesced with the intersection of three key players, helping Canada begin to create a framework for a national suicide prevention strategy.

Following the 2008 suicide of Carleton University student Nadia Kajouji, Rory Butler and Your Life Counts caught the attention of Conservative MP Harold Albrecht, Kitchener-Conestoga. A mutual goal of amending the Criminal Code to strengthen laws prohibiting on-line counselling of suicidal persons to kill themselves, evolved into the task of passing federal legislation for the enabling of a Canadian Suicide Prevention Strategy. Rory Butler and Harold Albrecht met up with Dr Adrian Hill, past President of The Canadian Association for Suicide Prevention and Chair of the YLC International Advisory Board. As Editor of the document, Adrian was able to share in fine detail the 2004 CASP Blueprint for a national suicide prevention strategy.

Within days the three men began planning to make the CASP strategy a national document.

After three years of steady leadership from Harold Albrecht MP and a mix of collaboration, effort, politics and providence, Bill C300, Federal Framework for Suicide Prevention Act, became law on December 14th, 2012”.

– Adrian Hill LSM, ADAC, CCGA, LLB, Juris.D. Chair, YLC International Advisory Board

“…Rory’s counsel and advice were invaluable to developing this piece of legislation…” – extract from endorsement of Harold Albrecht MP.

Read the official press release on Bill c300 from the Office of Harold Albrecht MP (Kitchener- Conestoga)

Read the verbatim record of Mr Albrecht thanking Rory Butler and Your Life Counts for our role in Bill c300 in the Open Parliament records.

GOVERNMENT OF CANADA

Parliamentary Committee on Paliative & Compassionate Care (PCPCC)

YLC Founder Rory Butler has been working closely with Harold Albrecht MP and other Parliamentarians across the political spectrum helping to explain the problem of suicide in the nation of Canada. The enactment of Bill c300 above is a positive outcome of the efforts of some very dedicated people across the country of which Rory was a leading voice.

 

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Bill c300 update – fruit on the tree!

30th November, 2016

Read the announcement http://news.gc.ca/web/article-en.do?nid=1159919

Your Life Counts welcomes the last Friday announcement by the Public Health Agency of Canada of the ongoing linkage and integration of regional crisis line services in Canada. In partnership with Rogers Communications and The Canadian Distress Line Network, Canadians will be able to access confidential support 24/7 by text, chat and phone. The federal government will provide 2 million dollars over 5 years for development. The national crisis line linkage will be completed late 2017.