Suicide is the second leading cause of death for Texas youth between the ages of 10-24.
When Grant Bomersbach noticed a friend at school had suddenly lost interest in his beloved extracurricular sport, Bomersbach decided to check in. His friend shared that he had been dealing with family and health issues at home.
Bomersbach's tone grew serious. He started probing: How's your schoolwork going? How do you feel at home? Is it a welcoming environment? Then he suggested meeting with the school counselor.
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It was uncomfortable to ask such personal questions, said Bomersbach, a junior at the Jesuit College Preparatory School of Dallas. But as a member of his school's Hope Squad, he had been trained to watch for and respond to signs of mental health struggles.
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Hope Squad is a peer-to-peer program that aims to reduce youth suicides by talking candidly about mental health in schools. Hope Squad members, who are nominated by classmates and trained by advisors, learn to identify suicide warning signs, initiate conversations with at-risk peers and refer students to school counselors.
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"The reality is that a lot of kids in crisis don't feel comfortable reaching out to adults," Bomersbach said. "They'd much rather talk to a kid."
In Texas, suicide is the second leading cause of death for youth between the ages of 10-24 (unintentional injuries is the first). The rate of youth suicides in the state dramatically increased from 1999 to 2020, according to data from the Texas Department of State Health Services.
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Peer-to-peer suicide prevention groups, such as Hope Squad, seek to curb those numbers by providing young people with mental health training. It's why 75 such groups gathered in Arlington on Wednesday to learn how to break the stigma of addressing mental health in schools. More than 1,000 students attended the Texas Peer-to-Peer Youth Conference hosted by the Grant Halliburton Foundation, Jordan Elizabeth Harris Foundation and the Grace Loncar Foundation.
"The whole purpose is to bring the kids together -- for them to see a larger community of kids focused on the same things they're focused on," said Amy Pool, senior thrive education manager at the Grant Halliburton Foundation.
More than 200 elementary, middle and high schools in North Texas have a peer-to-peer suicide prevention program, according to the Grant Halliburton Foundation. An influx of schools established them in 2021 as the pandemic took a toll on teens' mental health.
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Dallas Jesuit, the all-boys school that Bomersbach attends, started its Hope Squad after a student died by suicide in 2020.
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"Mental health was a topic that, especially in an all-male environment, was just not talked about. It was a 'man-up, deal with it' attitude," said Corey Marr, a freshman class counselor and the school's Hope Squad advisor. "We saw that was not working and something needed to change."
Now the school has 22 Hope Squad members. They meet weekly for 30 minutes, receiving training on the signs of at-risk kids. Here, they learn how to deploy the QPR (Question, Persuade and Refer) mental health tool when they see a student in crisis: ask questions, persuade them to get help or refer them to Marr.
The effects of the program have rippled beyond the group. Marr has noted an increase in non-Hope Squad students coming to him for help for themselves or a friend.
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"It's given people permission to not be so fearful of stigma anymore," he said.
Still, being a Hope Squad member comes with its own set of challenges, students say. Some of their peers don't take them seriously and make jokes about the group, said Ava Murphy, a freshman at Wills Point High School. Others grow defensive or shut down when members start conversations about their mental health.
"It's really hard to ignore it," Murphy said. "But at the end of the day, I'm helping people. I'm there for them. So I just tune (the negativity) out."
At Wednesday's conference, experts spoke to students about the teenage brain as well as social media's effects on mental health. Students role-played hypothetical scenarios, such as what they would do if a peer posted an Instagram picture of pills captioned, "Should I do it?"
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Later in the day, students talked with one another. They discussed how they take care of their own mental health, what stress-relief events they host for their classmates and how they navigate difficult conversations.
Murphy hoped to learn how to better detect warning signs on social media, such as a cryptic Instagram post or a change in posting frequencies. After a friend contemplated suicide this past fall, she wondered if she could have intervened earlier by checking on his social media more often.
"Some people might think it's a silly post," she said, "but at the end of the day it could be a cry for help."
At the end of the conference, Bomersbach said he was heartened to see so many students working toward a common goal. He hopes that peer-to-peer programs will prompt more students to start vulnerable conversations with one another.
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"The more kids you have who are comfortable reaching out to those who are struggling, the more deep relationships are going to form," he said. "It's more than just suicide prevention. It's connecting the entire community."
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