Hope Squad and the nonprofit 501(c)3 Hope4Utah — which oversees the former’s Utah-based squads — will be training member students on inclusion, resilience, anti-bullying, “everyone matters” and watching for suicide warning signs.

Cathy Bledsoe, Hope4Utah’s assistant director, told the Standard-Examiner that roughly 35 schools will be represented at the Weber High conference.

“We just do fun activities. We do leadership activities. We do presentations that center around mental health, self-care, you know, being a good friend, reaching out to others,” Bledsoe said of the event. “So, it’s kind of an encompassing leadership and social skills conference.”

Bledsoe added that social media and device use are among the areas of focus.

“I think mental health is an ongoing concern, especially with social media concerns and the amount of screen time that our elementary students experience,” Bledsoe said. “I think the more that we can encourage kids to get outside and play and do something else instead of looking at a screen can be very helpful. … We don’t want them to get rid of their cellphones or their video games completely, but having healthy management of screens and themselves is one thing that’s promoted in these conferences.”

Hope Squad’s beginnings can be found in Provo where, in 1997, Dr. Gregory A. Hudnall — then a high school principal — was contacted by police to identify a student who had taken their own life in the park next to his school. The tragic event catalyzed Hudnall’s efforts to prevent other children from facing similar pain and the eventual formation of Hope Squad.

Flash forward to now, and the organization says there are more than 500 elementary Hope Squads across the United States, with a large number in the Beehive State. According to Bledsoe, school counselors, teachers, other faculty and sometimes parents contact the organization about starting squads. The first-ever squad was launched at Timpview High School.

In addition to the Weber High event, other conferences will be held at Bingham High on Thursday and Viewmont High on March 20.

According to data from the Utah Department of Health and Human Service’s Public Health Indicator Based Information System, or IBIS, the age-adjusted suicide rate in Utah from 2021 to 2023 was 20.93 per 100,000 persons, with an average of 685 suicides per year. There were 696 suicide deaths in 2023, during which suicide was the second-leading cause of death for Utahns ages 10 to 17.

For more information, go to https://hope4utah.com/ or https://hopesquad.com/.