Hope Squad is an organization committed to teen suicide awareness and prevention. It was formed to support a community which was experiencing many teen suicides.
“It’s actually an organization that started in Utah,” according to Papio South sponsor Allison Andersen. “So, there was a community that experienced a lot of teen suicides, and so they kinda started it, and now it has spread.”
It is extremely valuable to any school, and found its way to Papio South during the early days of COVID-19. During that time, especially when students were isolated, it really began to show its true importance and value to a community.
“Kids were alone, … not socializing as much, and so I think it was very important that we started it then,” Andersen said.
Hope Squad’s aim is to make a student feel supported, and give them somewhere and someone safe to go to when they are struggling. Andersen made it clear that Hope Squad wants to make every student feel that there is someone helpful and kind at school.
“Our goal is to provide a safe space for students to come and get help, right? To have a representative from within the group. We want Hope Squad to be representative of our school. We want everyone to feel that there is someone that is kind, and welcoming, and a good listener that they know that they can come to if they ever need help,” Andersen said. “Or if they have a friend that needs help, we just want them to know that there is a space for that within the school.”
Students in this organization are trained on how to support their friend and what to do. Andersen emphasized that while students in Hope Squad help their peers that are struggling, students are not therapists or counselors, and they must recognize and react when someone is struggling and refer them to a trusted adult.
“There is a protocol called: Question, Persuade, and Refer. And so the students are trained on that particularly. So, how to ask difficult questions, how to help persuade them to go get help, and kind of the chain of command of who they refer to,” Andersen explained.
Through research, Hope Squad found that peer intervention could be extremely effective when attempting to help a struggling student.
“When I see my peers struggling, I always make sure to check in and make sure that they are OK,” junior Taylor Parrack, a Hope Squad member, said. “It could be a conversation, a text, or even just looking at them and mouthing, ‘You good?'”
Students feel more comfortable opening up to their peers,than they do with adults, and that is normal. Andersen feels that mental health and its importance are vital to talk about, more now than ever. Mental health is a part of life, and the presence of a peer intervention group can be crucial when supporting a student who is struggling.
“Mental health is such a hot topic, right? Like it’s so much more common to talk about it now, more than ever, and so I think it’s really important to have an organization like this, that very specifically isn’t just discussing mental health, but all of the members are also trained on how to very specifically react and respond when a student is struggling,” Andersen said.
She also emphasized that Hope Squad is not just a mental health club, and not just everyone can join. Students are really instructed on how to assist their peers who are struggling.
“We meet during Titan Time. So my Titan Time is all of the Hope Squad members. So, most of the week looks like a normal Titan Time, but once a week we have a lesson. So the Hope Squad organization has essentially a curriculum, and so we go over lessons that have anything to do with like social media use, to coping skills, to how to relate to your peers and be more vulnerable, and things like that.”
Even though students are put into a specific Titan Time, there is little time commitment to the organization during the week. However, students in Hope Squad are still expected to represent themselves a certain way throughout the whole week: a way that is welcoming, kind, and safe to students struggling.
“It’s like a lifestyle, right? They are expected to represent themselves a certain way,” Andersen said.
For Parrack that has translated into relationships: “Something I love about Hope Squad is the relationships, because we get so close and talk about personal and tough conversations. We get really close in a short amount of time. I know that I can trust anyone in there, and that brings me a lot of joy and comfort. Plus, any time with Ms. Andersen is the best time.”
