In 2022, suicide was the second leading cause of death for youth ages 10-14 in the United States. One of the top goals of the Community Foundation of Greater Birmingham is to improve child and youth mental health support in schools. This commitment includes working directly with school mental health coordinators in each district. One way the Community Foundation has done that is through Hope Squad, a national evidence-based, peer-to-peer suicide prevention program built around the power of connection.
During the 2022-2023 school year, Pell City Schools faced heartbreaking tragedy — the suicides of two students. Dionne Stevens had taken on the role of mental health coordinator for the school district that same year. Though she brought with her to this position 26 years of experience working in community mental health, these losses were devastating and eye-opening.
“I learned so much,” Stevens said. “It’s a really horrible way to learn, but I thought, if you’ve got to go through this, at least learn something from it.”
While helping the students, faculty, and staff navigate this trauma, Stevens was also striving to figure out how she could help prevent something like this from happening again. She quickly learned that in both cases many of the students’ peers were aware that the distressed students were struggling with their mental health and yet didn’t inform an adult.
Stevens started asking students regularly to share with her any schoolmates they were worried about. But she knew she needed to do more. She knew she needed Hope Squad.
How Hope Squad Works
Through the Hope Squad program, select students nominated by their peers from participating schools learn how to recognize signs of distress and how to connect peers to help and hope. Hope Squad advisors are trained at participating schools and provided the resources and ongoing support to meet regularly with the Hope Squad students to teach them about mental health and topics such as anti- bullying, QPR and to check-in on the overall wellness of the Hope Squad members too.
Also, Hope Squads lead programs and activities for the entire student body to reduce stigma around asking for mental health help.
The Hope Squad model is in 47 states and Canada and over 2,000 schools. This relatively low cost, non-staff intensive program is even supported in some states through legislative funding.
Hope Squad at Pell City Schools
In January 2023, the Community Foundation hosted an event with Hope Squad founder Dr. Gregory A. Hudnall to introduce the model to Alabama. The Foundation invited school district mental health coordinators, school system superintendents, and many community partners to attend.
The Community Foundation announced plans to fund a pilot program — on a first-come-first-served basis — for any school in Blount, Jefferson, Shelby, St. Clair, and Walker counties interested in establishing a Hope Squad.
With Stevens at the helm, Pell City Intermediate and Middle Schools became inaugural Hope Squad schools in Alabama.
Stevens hoped this program would help her and the faculty at Pell City Schools answer the tough questions they were grappling with.
“How can we change people’s view of getting help, receiving help, asking for help? How can we give them the language?” Stevens wanted to discover. “How can we tell them it’s okay? And how can we build more tolerance for one another within our schools.”
To select the members for the Hope Squads, Stevens and her team turned to the students.
“We didn’t ask who’s pretty or who’s popular. We asked ‘Who do you trust? Who’s a true friend? Who would you tell your secrets?” Stevens explained.
From this survey certain students began to stand out. In the end, the team selected and vetted 10 to 15 students per grade.
“If we do our job right on the front end then those kids that we picked are representative of all the different groups that make up a school,” Stevens said. “You should have your artsy kids and your bookish kids and your techie kids and your sporty kids.”
Hope Squad advisors train Hope Squad members, who learn leadership skills, how to note signs of distress, and who to turn to for help. The advisors also monitor the well-being of the Hope Squad student members.
During the 2023-2024 school year, Hope Squad members at Pell City Intermediate and Middle Schools not only lent a listening ear to their peers but also organized school-wide programs and activities designed to promote mental health.
There was Shred Your Stress Day where students could write down on a piece of paper what was stressing them the most and then send that worry through a shredder.
“You wouldn’t believe how something that simple was such a big deal,” Stevens said.
They also created a coping skills board that featured healthy coping strategies for a variety of emotions. For example, if a student felt angry, they might pick a card encouraging them to take 10 deep breaths and talk to a friend.
They also brought in motivational speakers to talk about resilience.
Robin V. Sparks, Mental Health Initiative Director for the Community Foundation, attended a program organized by Pell City Schools’ Hope Squads during the 2023-2024 school year.
“To witness the receptivity of fifth to eighth graders to the information, the speaker, and the positivity, and then to see over 650 children sign a pledge not to suffer alone and have 20 students (not previously on counselors’ radar) so moved that they asked for help on the spot was heart-wrenching but so hopeful,” Sparks reported. “Needless to say, there were many tears shed.”
Rachel Spates, the former principal of Pell City Intermediate School, was so moved by the program she has now gone on to work for Hope Squad as a representative for the Southeast.
Most importantly, Stevens sees a change within the schools.
Students, faculty, and staff report that “people are just being nicer,” Stevens said.
“And kids are asking for help.”
Looking forward, Stevens hopes the Hope Squad at Pell Intermediate can do outreach to the four elementary schools in the area, especially to help quell the fears of fourth graders nervous about transitioning to the intermediate school for fifth grade.
This year, the team will implement the Hope Squad program at Pell City High School. Hope Squad has been added as a Tier 1 program option by the Alabama State Department of Education (ALSDE) for all Alabama schools.
“Hope Squad is not teaching kids to be therapists,” Stevens said. “It is teaching kids to be friends, and it is teaching them how to be good citizens.”