Schools for Hope; New Campaign to Prevent Suicide in Youth

High School Teens at Oak Park River Forest High School Planting Hope, 2013

Did you know 1 in 9 kids attempt suicide prior to graduating high school, and that 40% of those kids are in grade school?  (Journal of Adolescent Health via Family Matters, 2011).  And that the number one autofill on google is ‘Hope makes me…  depressed’?  We don’t know exactly why, but what we do know is that the primary predictors of suicide include hopelessness and depression.  (Association of Physicians, 2004).

The Good news?  HOPE is teachable and depression is treatable? (Rand and Cheavens, 2008),  It is true.  Research suggests that Hope can be taught  and that the greater the hope, the greater the level of well-being (Scioli, 2009).  Hope is defined as the perceived ability to create pathways to a desired result, and the motivation to follow those pathways through to the desired result (Rand and Cheavens, 2008).  Higher Hope corresponds to greater emotional and psychological well-being, greater academic performance, and enhanced personal relationships (Snyder, 2005).

With your help, we can bring a lesson plan of HOPE with activities to the classroom.  Our goal is to raise $85,000 throughout December for this project through our Indiegogo campaign, and then to spend January and February creating the research-based curriculum to launch in ten test schools in April of 2014.  Our goal is then to take the finalized curriculum global in 2015.

Our Overall Vision for Schools for Hope:

Our aim is to expand on our Field for Hope project that cultivates Hope through seeing through a planting of sunflowers; from seed to flower and back to seed.  With your help we aim to take this project further and share messages and symbols of hope with others; creating curriculum around the planting specifically to teach Hope to children.  And then to nurture Hope and through peer to peer support to teach this to the next classroom.

  • Engaging children through a 360° support and wisdom sharing system—peer-to-peer, teachers, counselors/psychologists and parents.
  • Partnering with mental health education experts, curriculum will be targeted, self-paced and ready to implement into school systems.
  • Leverage online and new social mobile application technology to implement the program. Content will be engaging and inspirational and delivered on a relevant youth-oriented platform.
  • Integrate a yearly sunflower planting symbolic of HOPE in the Spring, writing messages of Hope to those that then harvest the seeds in the fall, starting the infinite spiral for Hope.
  • Garner research through metrics analysis, evaluation and optimization.
  • Pilot in Chicago schools; adapt to deploy tailored program focused in PTSD and tragedy to those areas as needed. (i.e. Sandy Hook, Columbine, Oklahoma, etc.)

Please help us make this campaign a success!  With your generous donation of time, brain power, and/or contacts we can get this moving.  Hope is teachable, depression is treatable. Let’s help make ALL kids feel value and like there is always a way to resolve problems in a positive, productive way.

Please visit www.schoolsforhope.org and help us make this project a reality.

Spread Hope by Sharing this!
About Kathryn

Kathryn Goetzke has over 30 years of experience in marketing, branding, and strategy. She was recently appointed to be a representative at the United Nations for the World Federation for Mental Health. Kathryn is the Founder of iFred, the International Foundation for Research and Education on Depression, through which she created Hopeful Minds and Hopeful Cities, two programs dedicated to sharing the “how-to” of hope with children, parents, and communities globally. Kathryn presented at Harvard University, the World Bank, the United Nations, and the Never Alone Summit. Hopeful Minds was featured in a documentary by the BBC, and her products and projects have been featured in global media.

Kathryn is a Partner at Innovative Analysis, LLC, where she consults businesses on activating hope in the workplace, and created a college program Hopeful Mindsets, a marketing strategy and course for college students to activate hope on campus. She is the author of the Biggest Little Book About Hope and host of The Hope Matrix Podcast. In her role as Chief Mood Officer at The Mood Factory, she created the first nationwide cause marketing campaign for mental health through her brand Mood-lites, which achieved over 35M in retail sales. Ms. Goetzke serves on advisory boards for FundaMentalSDG, Y Mental Health, Women’s Brain Project, and the Global Mental Health Movement.

Speak Your Mind

*