One year after going through an unimaginable loss, Rob Dueck is hoping to help make lasting changes for youth wellness and suicide prevention.
In November 2022, his step-daughter Jaida Petersen-Brown died at the age of 16 after taking her life.
Dueck and Jaida's mother, MaryLouise, decided to channel their grief and created The Jaida Project, a movement rooted in a passion to advocate for change while shining a light on mental health and suicide.
"We came up with the idea that we can't let any other family go through this, because this is the most horrible thing that a family could ever imagine," he says. "Very few families can even imagine the horror that's involved in this happening."
Immediately after Jaida's death, the two parents decided that they couldn't shy away from what happened, which included MaryLouise writing a powerful obituary.
"It was from that point on that somehow we weren't shy about saying, this is what happened to our daughter," Dueck says. "We experienced a great deal of stigma that people attached to us because of how our daughter died.
"The whole process is very confusing for parents and caregivers and guardians, because they've now entered a world they are unfamiliar with, and there are a few things — they're scared for their children, and the concept of suicide is so foreign to all of us that in part, in denial as to what what can possibly occur."
Dueck quickly acknowledges he didn't realize the extent of the local situation, saying that he had seen a statistic that there are about 1,200 suicide attempts in the city per year, but was subsequently told that figure is likely undercounted.
"This is a crisis," he says.
Since January, Dueck has been involved in meetings alongside other advocates with leaders of local agencies and service providers. He has also met with provincial and federal representatives, and spoke at a local roundtable discussion hosted by the province's associate minister of mental health and addictions.
Those efforts have helped spur a movement to pursue establishing a youth wellness hub in Thunder Bay, something that was referenced earlier this week in the provincial legislature during a brief Queen's Park speech by Thunder Bay–Atikokan MPP Kevin Holland.
Last month, a youth summit was held at a local hotel as part of a plan to map out what a youth wellness hub in Thunder Bay would look like, and what programs and services needed to be considered.
Dueck, along with leaders of participating agencies and political representatives, were blown away by what they saw.
"It took my breath away and every adult, every caregiver, every agency in that facility took their breath away and said, I had no idea, and the youth got up and they didn't hesitate," he says. "They walked right to the front and proudly said, 'This is why I'm here, this is what I need to talk about."
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