First introduced to CASP in 2002 when she gave a presentation to what she deemed as “a community of like-minded people”, Dr. Yvonne Bergmans became a board member of the organization in 2005, the board secretary in 2008 and has remained a member of CASP for the past 19 years.

With a history as a child and youth worker, a special education teacher and guidance counsellor for marginalized and at-risk youth, Yvonne became and worked as an MSW, RSW suicide interventionist. For 21 years she worked at the Arthur Sommer Rotenberg Chair in Suicide Studies at St. Michael’s Hospital, developing a group intervention for people who have experienced suicide attempts, working with an interprofessional team to provide risk assessments, crisis intervention, education/training and research. She obtained her PhD from Dublin City University where her thesis was focused on understanding and responding to recurrent suicide attempts.

When not warming herself by the heat of her wood stove in Gilmour Ontario, Yvonne lives in Toronto, where she has her own business providing supervision and consultations to care-providers, education and training to community health providers, and research focused on suicidality.