Book your team today so they can return with a 3-5-year plan that embeds a sustainable Sweethearts & Heroes initiative that will ripple through all grades and all students.
Interested? Reach Out!
The Problem
We are perhaps living among the most hopeless generations humanity has ever known, and make no mistake: it is a war.
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, since 2011, suicide rates among youth and young adults in the United States between the ages of 10-24 have increased by 60%.
The most staggering increase in youth suicide comes from preteens and teens aged 10 to 14, which has tripled from 0.9 per 100,000 in 2007 to 2.9 per 100,000 in 2018. These numbers only represent the increased rate of death by suicide. Our youth are living in more hopeless and persistent states of sadness at alarming paces. Suicidal attempts, along with anxious and depressive feelings, are also on the rise.
More than 1.1 million visits to the pediatric emergency department are made each year for suicidality, with the most significant increase being among children aged 10 to 12 years old. The numbers have grown fivefold from 1,058 in 2010 to 5,606 in 2020.
The CDC’s April 2022 report reveals that 44% of teens experience “persistent feelings of sadness or hopelessness.” This is a significant increase from approximately 26% in 2009 and 37% in 2019.
Increased Screentime
We believe hopelessness is exacerbated by rises in sedentary lifestyles and poor diets, coupled with the decline of free play and the stripping of autonomy in our children, which have overwhelmed our youth with anxiety, depression, and destructive decisions at a rapidly scary rate.
Similar Trends Among our Nation’s Protectors
The Marines - Take Care of Each Other - Suicide Prevention
For years, we have espoused the astonishing and perplexing similarity of hopelessness among our youth, matching the hopelessness many of our active duty and veteran military service members feel.
The suicide rate per 100,000 service members in the last few years has risen to 28.9 in the Army, 20.6 in the Navy, and 19.7 in the Air Force.
Yet, the Marines, America’s toughest fighting force, has risen higher than all of them, with 34.9 out of 100,000 Marine service members dying by suicide in 2022, up from a rate of 23.9 in 2021 and higher than any other service.
Our Children are the Solution
The first step in this mission is to empower young people to become the change the world needs. Our role as educators, parents, guardians, and community members is not to solve this moral puzzle.
Our job is to guide and shepherd the generations coming up behind us who will one day stand in our shoes. We need to empower our youth to lead change, and this requires us to become generationally aware and not seek to impose “our way” of doing things through generational narcissism. We want to give them the necessary tools and resources and let them implement these practices utilizing our guidance as needed.
Creating Positive Networks of Support
Our mission is to empower young people to come together to make a change in the world. No one can go it alone. This goes for both individuals and individual communities. We must join as a collective under one banner to defeat the monster of hopelessness.
We must foster a network of support, especially among peers, on a local, statewide, and even nationwide scale to lean on one another’s strengths.
Dr. Peter Wyman has done significant research around building strong, positive peer networks of support to prevent depression and suicide through a study on the Wingman-Connect program for Airmen. This research has been published in the Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry.
Our lives are shaped by the people we surround ourselves with in many different environments, but our peer network often acts as our primary environmental influence. To stop the spread of hopelessness on a massive scale, we must construct new intergroups among individuals who traditionally stay separated. Everyone influences social networks and can bring something to the table.
While you should include your “high flyers” like the football team captains or the school musical leads to champion this change, our message is meant to reach all students, from the coder’s club to the newspaper editor. Our goal is to incorporate the unique capabilities of all students to form bonds that will allow them to learn from one another.
The characteristics of a cohesive, positive peer network establish healthy norms and practices, offering needed support and lifting up individuals who are vulnerable to mental health problems or challenges by promoting more help-seeking behaviors.
Movement, Fun, &
For years, we have said that “taking fun out of education should be called abuse!” We believe we must combat the rising anxiety, depression, and general hopelessness in our youth through play!
As children, most of us naturally get exercise through self-directed, self-controlled play! One of the most significant contributors to the mental and emotional struggles our youth experience today can strongly be linked to the lack of free play they experience in the modern world.
Integrating play and exercise sparks joy and releases what are known as feel-good endorphins, promoting self-confidence, resilience, and a growth mindset. These are all pillars of SEL, and we have a unique partnership that makes these powerful benefits accessible.
Spartan is a global fitness brand with a community of 10+ million strong on a mission to change 100 million lives. They create transformational events, experiences, products, and content to help people, companies, and teams tear down boundaries and expand what they believe to be possible.
Sweethearts & Heroes is partnering with Spartan to utilize their world-renowned obstacle course races and champion their lifelong fitness mindset. These youth leadership summits will take a select group of your youth leaders and influencers and start them on a multi-year-long leadership program to bring back to your local community. Our mission is to instill a lifelong fitness mindset, build a global community of support that strengthens your district, and give your students the skills to provide H.O.P.E., take action, and become Sweethearts & Heroes!
Onsite visits for Circle work, Circle Training (including our standard training, as well as “Train the Trainer” and “Student/Teacher” training), presenting signature message to your district, as well as additional virtual meetings/coaching are available. Pricing is an additional cost. We would love to discuss this with you further.