Jr. High student aims to raise awareness for RCMP mental health
By John Watson Local Journalism initiative Reporter
Photo Courtesy of Jon Ruzsinszki
A local junior high school student has begun working to raise awareness for the mental health of RCMP and how the community can help.
Grade 9 student, Jon Ruzsinszki, from Crowther Memorial Junior High School (CMJHS), began the initiative after researching the RCMP as a potential career path.
“I saw some articles about mental health and how the support for it isn’t very high, so I spoke to my principal and a few teachers about it, they said it would be a good idea, so we set up a plan … we had some RCMP officers join us and we’ve just been bringing awareness and gathering funds for it,” explained Ruzsinszki.
Following his meetings with his principal and with the district RCMP officer who engages with the school, Ruzsinszki set out to gain more support from the community and set up a way to spread the message.
“It’s more of an awareness campaign. We have done a few things – we did an announcement through the intercom for the school (and) we did presentations in class,” he said. “(The RCMP officer) told the whole Strathmore detachment about it, they all apparently said it was a good idea and wanted to support it, so we had a few officers who were able to come down.”
Through looking into the subject, Ruzsinszki discovered RCMP suicide rates to be above the national average compared to that of regular civilians.
“I was looking at a lot of different statistics and I realized that the suicide rate for an officer, I think, was 17 in every 100,000, whereas the normal (rate for civilians) was 13 in every 100,000,” said Ruzsinszki.
“It doesn’t sound like a big difference, but with the fact that we don’t have a whole lot of RCMP, that number even just being for higher than the regular count of civilians and on the rise still, (makes an impact).”
Currently the plan for running awareness through the school is to regularly have announcements over the PA system and set up a booth on certain days to reinforce local awareness and provide a place to make donations.