An Aboriginal Youth Council of Canada project aimed at preventing suicide received a celebrity endorsement Wednesday afternoon in Whitehorse.

Officials with the council and the Northwestel Summit Hockey School were joined by NHL star forward Jordin Tootoo.

Tootoo signed with the Detroit Red Wings last month. He previously played for the Nashville Predators.

They announced the council's plans for a suicide prevention kit aimed at urban aboriginal youth to be distributed across the country.

Tootoo – the NHL's first Inuk player – is part of the hockey school while the youth council was in town for the national gathering of friendship centres.

"I think the biggest issue is being able to talk about it,” Tootoo, 29, told reporters at the mid-day news conference Wednesday, noting that everyone has issues they have to face.

Though he described himself as a man of few words, the Rankin Inlet, Nunavut native isn't afraid to speak from personal experience.

In 2002, Tootoo lost his brother Terence to suicide.

After struggling with alcohol abuse, in December 2010 he voluntarily entered the NHL/NHLPH Substance and Behavioral Health Program.

At the time, though it may have seemed he had everything going for him playing in the NHL, he said he was at a dark spot in his life where he found himself having to reach out and ask for that help.

He was at the point he needed help both to assist in prolonging his hockey career and for himself on a personal level.

"My family's been my number one support,” he said.

After reaching out and getting the help he needed, Tootoo said, he's at a good point in his life where he's fortunate to get up each day and go to work with a smile on his face, doing what he loves.

"Right now, I feel very content,” he said.

It's his hope that initiatives like the suicide prevention tool kit and his own project to provide suicide prevention resources on the Jordin Tootoo website that's under development will help youth reach out as they deal with whatever issues they are facing.

"They're the next leaders,” he said.

As Andrea Landry, who's chairing the council's suicide prevention strategy, noted, one of the main goals of the strategy is to have aboriginal youth speak out about what's often a taboo subject.

The strategy is also looking at the various issues around suicide. It's not one issue like depression, as many often believe, that leads to suicide.

"It's a variety of issues,” she said.

Landry also pointed to the importance of getting a positive message out. It's rare the positive stories are reported of those who have come out of a negative place to live positive, happy lives.

In her own case, it was a counsellor at the friendship centre in Thunder Bay, Ont., where she was living at the time, who helped her embrace her First Nations culture and overcome the obstacles in her life.

Landry is now sober, and will begin working on her master's degree in September.

The council will have to submit a funding application for the tool kit project to Health Canada, which is expected to happen later this month.

If it goes ahead as planned, the tool kit will be developed to include a 100-page brochure detailing where youth can seek help as well as statistics and other information.

Workshops are also part of the plans.

It's expected the tool kit would be available in about a year and a half after funding is approved, said outgoing council president Kody Taylor.

By STEPHANIE WADDELL

Star Reporter