maria's blog

CASPER has secured financial and legal services from two of New Zealand's top companies. Our grateful thanks to law firm Buddle Findlay and accountants PriceWaterhouseCoopers for their support of suicide prevention.

The CASPER management team has been working on a model that explains suicide and the environmental/social and cultural conditions we need to create to prevent suicide. We would very much appreciate your feedback and suggestions on it which can be submitted at maria@casper.org.nz

Many of you will be aware of the debate currently raging over the inclusion of grief as a mental disorder in the new diagnostic manual for psychiatry. If the proposed inclusion goes ahead, being sad for two weeks after bereavement will meet the criteria for a psychiatric diagnosis of Major Depressive Disorder.

Today CASPER announced the establishment of a very important relationship with Mike Pero and his mortgage and real estate companies.

Any charity would be thrilled to announce a sponsorship deal worth $1million in cash, marketing, PR, fundraising and other business services. Any charity established a little over a year ago would of course be proud of its association with a brand which is as respected, known and trusted as the Mike Pero brand. I want to tell you though, why this relationship is so special and such a great fit for CASPER.

The Strategy that we provided to the Prime Minister is now available on this website under the research tab. Hard copies are available for $15 each and can be ordered by emailing us through the contact tab. We have had very positive feedback on the strategy from experts around the world,frontline suicide prevention workers and families who have experienced suicide in New Zealand.

Join us today for a family fun day and picnic at Heron Park (Cadman Street, Waterview). BYO picnic. Sausage sizzle and walk to raise funds for CASPER. Balloons and Lolly Scramble for Children.

Community Cohesion Prevents Suicide.

Check out the events calendar for details of Help or Harm Presentations in Auckland (2nd Sept), Hamilton (3rd Sept)and New Plymouth (6th Sept and the march to parliament on September 8.

Click the link to read this months edition of Suicide Truth.

As always, we welcome your feedback and contributions.

Following a spate of youth suicides and an outpouring of grief by the friends of the young people who died, we were invited into this community. They asked us to give them information on suicide in Maori and Pasific communities, effective Tikanga based prevention strategies and talk from our experience about how best to support those bereaved by suicide.

The advice they had been given by the Ministry of Health didn't sit comfortably but they wanted to evaluate the evidence underpinning a Tikanga approach before choosing to reject the advice of the Ministry.

Journalist, author and Pulitzer Prize Nominee Robert Whitaker is coming to speak at CASPER's World Suicide Prevention Day event in NZ. So excited!