When you have a child, like mine, who has had suicide ideation since the ripe age of 10 after their father abandoned us. As a parent you do everything in your power to help & protect your child. This has evolved since then into other mental health issues, & being put on suicide watch for over a month....I don’t wish that upon any parent. But I am a lucky parent, as I still have my baby & I am working very hard on getting them the help they need. It’s hard to fathom those bereaved parents who have lost a child.... most likely the worst grief a human can endure. I have met a few in my region through my volunteer advisor work with Hope Squad, and my heart just bleeds for them! Cyber-bullying (ie: a common phrase ‘go kill yourself’) & bullying have become rampant amongst youth. It’s not getting better, it’s getting worse & the suicides have risen at an alarming rate since the onset of the pandemic. We must change the culture of our schools to reflect mental health education amongst our youth. 

What is HOPE SQUAD? It is a peer-to-peer school program in the prevention of youth suicide. Hope Squads reduce youth suicide through education, training, and peer intervention. Hope Squad members are nominated by their classmates as trustworthy, compassionate peers and trained by advisors to watch for at-risk peers, provide friendship and seek help from an advisor or adult. We train teams of compassionate and caring youth with our extensive curriculum grades 4-12 (grades 4-6 with a more kindness approach) and they become the eyes and ears of the school. They learn amongst so many other things ie: resiliency; anti-bullying; boundaries; self-care; suicide prevention, intervention & postvention. Hope Squad is now in 31 states & Alberta, in over 950+ schools with 30,000 members & over 5000 students referred for help and its time to start spreading this hope, & start saving youth lives in Ontario

WHY Hope Squad?

-To create a safe school environment

-Promote connectedness

-Support anti-bullying

-Encourage mental wellness

-Reduce mental health stigma

-Prevent substance misuse

Hope Squads make the difference by bridging the gap between teachers & students and are educated on how to approach their peers & recognize warning signs of mental illness, suicide, or potential suicide behavior. Hope Squads have also adapted to an online model to offset the school closures due to Covid.

My goal is to bring HOPE SQUAD to Ontario for the '21/'22 school year and I need your signatures to do this! Please help me reach this goal so we can all start helping save youth lives in Ontario.... 1 school at a time!

It takes a village to raise a child, it takes an entire community to save one.

NBC Nightly News​

Anadarko School Hope Squad