A new nonprofit sets out to protect the island’s at-risk youth.

Health & Sports

story by Larry Lindner

photography by Kit Noble

Remy Stressenger lost her father to suicide when she was seven, and the fallout has reverberated in more ways than one. “My son is bipolar, and my dad was bipolar,” she says, “so there’s always that worry in your head.” But it wasn’t until a friend’s son took his own life, and then her best friend’s nineteen-year-old son chose to end his life, that Stressenger, owner of the women’s clothing store REMY on Old South Wharf, founded Launch2Life.

The nascent nonprofit’s initial goal is straightforward but lofty: Get every adult who works with children and teens certified in mental health first aid, which addresses both crisis and non-crisis situations. The seven-hour certification course—all online and broken into as many as three sessions—answers the question: “What would you do in this situation?”

Sarah Sylvia, whose thirteen-year-old daughter, Lily, attends the New School, was thrilled for the training the staff underwent. “Lily was ten years old when she first started having thoughts about suicide,” says Sylvia, whose daughter was unwavering in her desire to be named in this article to help erase the stigma associated with emotional struggles. Today, Lily is doing much better. “We went from a time where I didn’t feel comfortable leaving her alone—scariest time of my life…” her mother says, trailing off.

But, Sylvia points out, she and her husband had the wherewithal to get Lily professional help. They were also very lucky that their daughter communicated with them. “It very easily could have gone the other way for her if she didn’t feel comfortable talking to us about it,” Sylvia says. “She would have just raced into a really dark place.” Not all parents have children who open up or the resources to take action, which is why Sylvia is so glad for Launch2Life and the opportunities for certification it provides. “So many parents are working all the time,” she says. “They’re just not really aware of how much kids struggle. It’s very hard to be a kid right now.”

The New School’s head of school, Todd Eveleth, is also glad for the training his staff received. Every person at the school has to know CPR, he says, “but we’re probably more likely to have a child in crisis than in cardiac arrest. I think at every school I’ve ever worked at, there have been situations that involved students considering self-harm. Even before the pandemic, the anxiety that our kids were facing was overwhelming. These are complicated days. Whatever it is—suicidal ideation, cutting—we need to be there.”

Eveleth explains that “it’s not just a moment of suicide” that adults need to watch for. “It’s looking for signs that lead up to that—recognizing those and knowing how to respond when a child really is spiraling. We have an obligation to keep an eye on these kids,” he adds, “whether it’s tough situations that are going on outside of school, or managing friendships inside of school, and having the skill set to watch proactively before a kid is at their lowest point.”

The certification course—two hours online at your own pace and five hours of instructor-led training via Zoom that can be broken into two sessions—helps meet those needs by teaching the nuts and bolts of the acronym ALGEE, which can be applied to everything from depression and anxiety to substance use, bullying and eating disorders:

• Assess for risk of suicide or harm.
• Listen nonjudgmentally.
• Give reassurance and information.
• Encourage appropriate professional help.
• Encourage self-help and other support strategies.

For the first E, Nantucket has Fairwinds, Nantucket’s Counseling Center, designated earlier this year as the island’s Community Behavioral Health Center by the commonwealth. That means “it has taken over crisis for the island 24/7 with the goal of really trying to meet people in the moment,” says Amanda Wright, Fairwinds’ clinical director.

One of the things Wright really likes about Launch2Life’s efforts to provide mental health first aid training is that it teaches people how to broach subjects they might not feel comfortable broaching. “People are afraid they’re going to put the idea [of suicide] in someone’s head,” she says. “But they’re already thinking that. It’s almost a relief that someone asks them a direct question and they can say, ‘Yes, I need help.’”

Wright also concurs with young Lily Sylvia about the need to be open. “We have to lower the stigma,” she says. “It’s OK to ask for help. If you had a diagnosis like diabetes, you would do what the doctor asked you to do. It’s the same with mental health—you need to get support.”

Stressenger, too, says that notions of stigma only get in the way, which is why she is glad that her son’s condition is “something he and I have had conversations about since he was diagnosed. He is proud to know there’s an explanation for what goes on in his brain. I believe the openness and shared knowledge help in suicide prevention.”

Stressenger’s son, Walker, who is now twenty-four and was good friends with the nineteen-year-old who ended his life, is devoted enough to the cause that he serves on Launch2Life’s Youth Advisory Board, along with his sister and seven others. All have their reasons for joining. Ryan Bordeau, a senior at the Dexter Southfield School in Brookline, wanted to become involved, he says, after one of his best friends delivered his senior speech, during which he said that the previous winter he had been very depressed, battled mentally and had a really hard time. “None of us, even his closest friends, knew about it,” Bordeau explains. “Even though they’re so close to you they still don’t tell you.”

His friend is “now playing lacrosse in college and doing really well,” Bordeau says. “He’s happy.” But not all have had the chance to be recognized, to talk and to launch toward adulthood. Someone commits suicide every eleven minutes in the United States; 14 percent are children. There is literally not a moment to lose.