Greg Hudnell

Interviewer : Let’s start out um, by talking about the project and why it was formed, why you decided that (unintelligible).

Greg : Um, about oh, it’s been a little bit longer than that, but the Hope Task Force has been around for eight or nine years. Um, and it came about because of a young man, I was principal of an alternative high school, Independence High School in Provo and right next to our school is a park. And uh, early in the morning on a New Year’s Eve I got a call from a police officer, Sergeant Duvall in Provo, that informed me that they had a body that they couldn’t identify and I was involved in that and I, I remember walking away from that experience saying to myself that, you know, we can’t let our children die. There’s something we have to do as a community and, and so out of that came the Hope Task Force. Individuals in the community that volunteer, we come together and, and I really believe that, you know, suicide can not be an option for us as a community or as a society.

Talk a little bit then about the (unintelligible).

Hope Task Force has about six or seven subgroups that we try to work with in the community. The first thing we do is a crises team which is a post support program but if you look at the research, if you’re not careful suicide can be a contagion. And so there a lot of students, when someone, when a child takes their life, there are a lot of students that are on the edge for whatever reason and unfortunately sometimes that enough to push them off the edge. And so the crises team comes in supports the school, tries to identify those kids that are at risk that may need some additional counseling or some additional support and for the parents. So we, we have a crises team that goes out and provides support to the community. Second thing, we have a an educational program. We go out and do presentations to parents, to groups, to communities, uh, trying to educate them on the prevention, signs to be aware of, what to watch for and then the most important thing is how to get help. We do training for the local press, for the television stations, the local newspapers. Research shows that you have to be careful what you publish. In fact, one of the research studies I say said that sui, when suicide is published, the suicide rate, if it’s not done correctly will go up anywhere from two to four percent in that area. The other thing we do is we have a survivors group so that we go out and um, try to help those families that are dealing with, with that death. We have wonderful parents who volunteer who go out meet with the family, try to give them help, give them support that way to work through those issues that they’re dealing with. Uh, we have a group that uh, in a partnership with I.H.C., um, we have beds, psychiatric care so that if we identify a student who is a serious threat, we will actually take them and place them in a psychiatric unit. We have uh, we provide a support group for students who have attempted, previous attempters free of charge that we provide the help that way. So it’s a multiple, multi-dimensional approach and then we train communities on how to put together their own team to support one another and identify the risk factors.

So let’s talk a little bit about the need for this and why it’s especially important here in Utah.

If you look at what’s happening across the country, um, Utah usually places around 10 th overall in adolescent suicide completion rate. And when you look at it, I’ve seen some studies as high as six or seven with the use of handguns. But overall we have a right around ten out of all the states. Most of the western states are, are in the top ten. And it’s interesting because suicide is a taboo word, we don’t want to talk about it. We, we whisper it or we don’t talk about it because we’re afraid it’s going to give children ideas to go out and complete or attempt. Where the reality is that research shows that ninety to ninety-five percent of the students who have attempted and or threatened have previously thought about suicide. Now they may not term it suicide but they’ve thought about taking their own life, they’ve thought about hurting themselves. They’ve thought about not wanting to live anymore. And, and so we need to talk about it. Um, I don’t, I, I do a lot of counseling with children and um, I don’t like to use the word suicide and, and that’s okay. I like to, when I talk with children, have you thought about taking your own life? It’s a much more safer approach and um, more comfortable but we’ve got to start talking about it. We’ve st, we’ve got to start addressing it. But more then that we’ve got to start preventing it. We’ve got to start getting help. We’ve got to start identifying those children that need help and then find the resources for them.

So when you go out, and you’re talking to parents and adults, what is the main message that you want them to know?

One of the things we try to go with parents is to give them the warning signs of what to be aware of. If you’re a parent and you, and there are certain things that all adolescents go through, you know, there are rights of passages and there are developmental stages that all children deal with and uh, so you have to be careful. But if you have a child who is sleeping, not wanting to get out of bed. Uh, you’re seeing some eating disorders. You’re seeing some problems where their grades are going down. They’re threatening because they, they can’t take the pressure anymore or no one cares about them. You’d be better off without me. I’d be better off dead. Um, you know some warning signs that you want to watch for, especially when you, when you have child who seems to be an average student or they’re doing okay and then something pushes them over the edge and they don’t rebound. All of us have crises, have problems that we deal with in our life but when an adolescent doesn’t come back to that normal stage, as a parent I want to be concerned about that. And sometimes we as parents, because we’re too emotionally invested, don’t see that or we’re not sure how to help and we, and we think it’s either a growing pain they’re going to get through it or sometimes it scares us so bad we don’t know what to do. And, and that’s why we want to educate parents, adult leaders, coaches, scout leaders, etc. these are the things to watch for. These are the ways that you can identify and then inform the parents and try to get help.

What about the stigma of mental illness? The stigma of the person that’s depressed?

You know the stigma is something that we’re always going to deal with, there’s no doubt about that. And, and um, NOMY(?) has a wonderful commercial that we use a lot in our presentation and it’s one that I use a lot when I go out and speak publicly. Um, on television a while back there was uh, a commercial for uh, um, a drug company and it was a lady getting out of uh, a limousine and she’s walking down this red carpet, she trips and falls. And then at the top it says cholesterol, 290. um, I take cholesterol medication, people look at me and go there’s no way. You don’t look like you would need it. I take it. It’s been in my family. It’s been in my system for many, many years and it’s something I’ll deal with the rest of my life. Well, unfortunately, children and other people have to deal with mental illness, they need, they have to deal with depression. They deal with other things that are stigma that oh, you’re ill. You’re mentally ill. You’re whatever. Children don’t create that, you know, they don’t make that up. And unfortunately in our society, as this commercial portrays, this other commercial, it’s shows three pretty hefty guys sitting at work and uh, a gentleman opens up his lunch pail and he reaches in and takes an anti-depressant pill. And, and the other three individuals that are sitting there, the one guy goes hey did you look at what silly guy over there had to do, he has to take medication because of his depression. And he kind of laughs and the gentleman next to him says but don’t you take heart medication? And then he turns to his colleague and he says don’t you take medication for cholesterol? Well, it, it, you know, there are certain things it’s okay to take medication and there are other things that aren’t. And then there are something’s that maybe don’t need medication but maybe can be helped with counseling or other things that can be done for the children and I think, we as a society have to accept that more and say it’s okay, how do I get help for my child. Because it, it, it’s not going to make you bad. It’s, it’s not going to make you, you know, fail as a parent. It’s just we need to educate people that they, that we need to get help for some children.

So what about the, um the main message that you give to the kids then, that you want the kids to know and especially for the purpose of this program?

You know I think if there was one message that I could give to the children of Utah, uh, I was in a presentation on television a year ago, or maybe a couple of years ago and, and it was an open questionnaire, so you could call in or you could ask from the audience and a girl asked the question of um, I have a best friend who has threatened to take her own life, but she made me swear that I wouldn’t tell anybody. And she goes and I don’t know what to do. And my response to her was how are you going to feel the next morning when your friend is no longer there because she completed? And I think it really took her by surprise. And my message to the youth of our, of our state is that a good friend will get help. Too many times I’ve gone out to homes and I’ve met with young children who are in the despair of their soul because their friend had said I’m going to take my own life and the friend didn’t tell an adult. Either they didn’t believe them, they didn’t know what to do or the student had said it a long time and the friend got tired of hearing it, but for whatever reason that young person didn’t tell an adult and that child is no longer here. And if I could tell anything to the youth is tell someone. Have the courage cause that’s what it’s going to take, it’s going to take guts, it’s going to take all the willpower you have and it may take a lost friend for a short period of time but if you have the courage to get help, you may save your best friends life.

That's really good. Talk a little bit about your theme that suicide is not an option and why you chose that.

Um, this one gets a little emotional but um, you know, there are very few people in our society that uh, have been around a child who has died. And um, there are very few people who suffer like a parent does and uh, having done therapy for many years, um, we as a society think that you just get over it. And you don’t. You don’t get over that pain and uh, I have so many dear friends that have learned to live with the pain, that’s all you do, it never, ever goes away and um. So our philosophy is that um, we need to have the courage to say that suicide can’t be an option. Um, because when it does then there are too many children taking their lives. And, and the idea is that if we can eliminate, we can get help and every child is different. I don’t care what the child is or what they’re dealing with, um, children need to know that there’s someone who cares about them and there’s someone who’s going to help them through that problem. Um, we as adults, we have a tendency to tell our kids just get over it, you know, because we’ve had those experiences. We’ve been dumped by boyfriends and girlfriends, we’ve lost jobs, we’ve wrecked the cars, we’ve done everything and we know that the next day the lights going, the sun is going to shine. The reality for a child is that immediate problem and they see no tomorrow and the pain is either so hard that they have to deal with it or learn how to have the pain go away and they don’t know how to do that. And so somehow we have to create in our system that suicide can not be an option.

What about these kids and their feeling of I would just be better off without being here, my family would be better off, I’m a failure, my friends would?

You know, I think everyone of us, and, and I know this hard for even my own children to understand but even adults struggle with, with feelings and emotions and all of us have gone through life either being the last pick of the baseball team or being left out of something or embarrassed or whatever. And, and what children need to understand is that, that they will be missed and that there are people that really, really care about them that may not have the skills to help them through that experience but there is no child who is better off not being here the next day. They may feel that way and, and I’ll be honest, I have felt that way and so I know what the children are saying and the young people in our community but what they need to understand is that the ripple effect that they leave behind, you know, the friends that I work with that everyday this mother gets up and looks at the picture of her thirteen year old and she thinks, you know, he would graduate from high school this year. Or he would be on his prom date or he would be getting ready to go to college or go into whatever. That will never, ever happen. Ever. They will never have that experience. And so the young people need to know that they’re, the sun will come out tomorrow and that there will be there, there will be someone there to help them, they just have to let us get that help for them.

Also would you talk a little bit about um, this whole, it gets back to stigma and that too but kids often think I’m the only one that feels this way. You know, I’m and, and if you look at um, it’s kind of a two part thing but if you look at Cade, if you look at Stacy’s son, I mean, all these kids just appear to be bright, wonderful, normal teenagers that somehow they’re not feeling that way. They’re feeling like somethings wrong with them. Um, maybe you could address, to kind of underline that, that this could happen to anyone.

Yeah. You know, I’ve been in this business twenty-two years now and I’ve, I, I go to every home of a child that we lose and I’ve been in some of the most expensive homes that you can imagine and I’ve been in some of the poorest homes you can imagine. Suicide is across all fronts and, you know, it’s interesting, uh, when I was a principal I’d walk by an office and a psychologist was doing counseling to this very pretty cheerleader and uh, he was telling her you know, but you’re the most beautiful girl in the school, how can you feel this way? There’s no reason that you should have any doubts. And I remember thinking to myself, that’s probably not the best way to approach dealing with that child. Um, but what it did to me is that it made me realize that everyone struggles. And here was the most popular girl in our school, the prettiest girl in our school and yet she had as many self-doubts as anyone else. And I think that’s the thing to remember for our young people is that all of us are going to have those doubts and that there’s not a person in the school that doesn’t have self-doubts, that doesn’t feel like they’re not going to pass that class, that they feel like they’re not going to get asked out for that date or some experience or whatever. So the experiences that they’re going through are really part of normalcy or our soc, of our life of growing up. And, and we need to help them understand that a lot of us go through those, more, more serious then others. Um, and, and there are individuals that deal with depression, the bi-polar, you know, the other parts of mental illnesses that are maybe not as severe but the reality is, it’s, it’s like my cholesterol. You know, my wife doesn’t let me eat butter. My wife doesn’t let me have sugar. I have to drink this white water she calls milk. Now on the outside everyone thinks I’m very healthy and no one would even know it but on the inside my system, for whatever reason, doesn’t build uh, or it builds up the plague or whatever so I take medication everyday. Do I want to? No, but is it something I need to to be healthy? Yes. That’s and, and when you’re young and feel like you’re going to live forever and you know, whatever, it’s a lot different but uh, everybody faces challenges in life.

Could you kind of do an introduction and tell the audience about the Hope Squad?

Our Hope Squad is another component of our Hope Task Force. We have it in elementary, middle school and high school and it’s a program that Wendi Christianson has really taken to the next level. We’re very, very excited. The research shows that the most success, the best success you can have with adolescent’s is adolescent helping adolescent. They get tired of mom and dad and all the old fogies preaching to them. And our Hope Task, our Hope Squad is a group of individuals who have been identified by their peers as students that if a student was struggling would go and get help, would visit with them. And then we’re training, Wendi and the school counselors, Monte and others are training these students what to watch for, how to get help and who to turn to in time of a need. This is a great, great program.

Okay.

The Hope, the Hope Squad is a group of individuals that have been identified by their peers as individuals that they would go to for help. Um, Wendi Christianson is the social worker and Monte Cort(?) and others oversee the program for Timpview High School. Very, very successful program and as a matter of fact, I, if I remember correctly, three students last year were identified and able to get help because of them, any many others that the students reach out that we’re not aware of. But three students that, that we had um, had been able to identify who were either suicidal or depressed. Um, but the Hope Squad is a group of great young people who care about their fellow students and want to reach out and help.