BELMAR – St. Rose High School in Belmar will join the effort to address the growing crisis of youth suicide during the week-long Hope Squad observation from April 24 to 28.
This year is St. Rose’s first year of participation in the Hope Squad’s celebration of 19 years of service to schools, youth and their families who are fighting against bullying, discrimination and social pressure. The group at St. Rose was organized last year.
St. Rose High School has 36 student members, nine students at each grade level. Three licensed advisors run and train students on the Hope Squad principles and methods.
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Hope Squad was born in Provo, Utah in 2004 and continues to spread its mission of reducing youth suicide through education, training and youth intervention. It is a peer-to-peer suicide prevention program where student members are nominated by their peers in school. It uses the Question-Persuade-Refer [QPR] approach in its youth intervention activities.
“The QPR program is used very widely. Military uses it. Government uses it. QPR had always been looking for ways to get their programs into schools. Hope Squad is that vehicle. QPR is the basis of the training that the students receive,” said James Clabby, a volunteer and licensed adviser of Hope Squad. Mr. Clabby, a Wall Township resident, helped St. Rose High School in enrolling into the program.
The Hope Squad members also come from all backgrounds as it encourages inclusiveness in its membership.
“They want a broad demographic of high school members. They want the jock, the brains, the kids from the choir, the acting class, LGBT-plus community represented and different races. They want everybody there because if it’s kids having problems, they are going to somebody who looks like them most of the time. Some of these subgroups of kids are potentially more at-risk populations,” Mr. Clabby explained.
“The nomination process is pretty incredible. One of the first steps after the licensed advisers are trained, the first thing they do is they send out a questionnaire to the entire student body,” said Mr. Clabby.
“If you had a problem, or if you had suicide thoughts or were depressed, name three of your classmates or peers that you would feel comfortable talking to?” was the simple, qualifying question to pick out its squad members.
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