Hopebeat Weekly: March 6, 2024

Las Vegas, Hopeful Cities, & More!

The Shine Hope Company proudly announces the City of Las Vegas joins the Hopeful Cities movement. The Hopeful Cities initiative is a comprehensive program and public health campaign aimed at raising awareness about the elements for creating, maintaining, and growing hope through targeted interventions across various city sectors, including government, the workplaceartscienceeducation, and healthcare.

Hopeful Cities is equipping cities around the world with the tools they need to create, maintain, and grow hope, citywide. Find out how you can join the movement, help spread and activate hope in your city. Email us at activate@theshinehopecompany.com or visit www.hopefulcities.org.

Yesterday I’m thrilled to share our study reviewing our Hopeful Mindsets on the College Campus Course was published in the Journal of American College Health. Hope is teachable!! It is so exciting to have additional evidence that we can teach hope around the world, especially with the recent news. If you know college administrators, college students passionate about mental health, or your own child is going away to college, have them consider taking Hopeful Mindsets on the College Campus or bringing it to their school for a full University activation.

Bringing me to the news. Fortune just did an article on hopelessness in America, and the mental health crisis in youth. Yet I would suggest it fundamentally is still a hopelessness crisis, as hopelessness is the primary symptom of anxiety and depression, the two biggest mental health disorders. It is also the single predictor of suicide and violence. Again, bringing me such excitement in showing that hope is teachable.

There is a cool new longitudinal study published on hope in youth. It showed that having hope for the future in adolescence was associated with improvements including higher cognition and self-rated health, less physical inactivity, fewer depressive symptoms, lower perceived stress, and improvement on a number of psychological and social factors including greater happiness, more satisfaction with parenting, and increased voting and volunteering in adulthood. Which again is so exciting, because Hope Is Teachable!!!

Which is why we haven’t written lately! We’ve been busy activating hope with other incredible partners. I just visited NAMI Nevada to teach hope skills to the community. I also attended the Disability Rights California, where I was able to spend time with Zoya Awan, our amazing partner from Walmart, Marisa Hamamoto, the incredible dancer from Infinite Flow, and Troy Kotsur, the first-ever deaf actor to win an Oscar! What an incredible celebration of amazing humans.

It was also a recent honor to keynote and connect with inspiring founders Gail and John Urso of Kevin’s Song. They are doing incredible work throughout Michigan, in honor of their son Kevin who lost his life to suicide when he was just forty-one. The conference was filled with so much connection and caring and I’m eternally grateful to have shared what I know about hope, and connect with others that care deeply for our teens including Dr. Hayley Watson of Open Parachute.

Another highlight was meeting Leslie Weirich of Leslie’s Hope. I was able to hear of Leslie’s incredible son Austin, all the love he spread to all he met, and Leslie’s work to turn her grief into inspired action with speaking to men and boys across the US. She so inspires me, as our boys need the kind of mother Leslie is now more than ever. She teaches them it is OK to feel sad, and express that sadness in healthy ways. What an Angel Leslie is to this world.

So grateful for these last few months full of connection. And to be activating communities on the ‘how’ to hope. If you want your college, workplace, city, or youth to get activated, feel free to reach out. All our books are now online and available for purchase (including the Teen Hope Guide and Hopeful Cities Playbook!).

Thank you so much for your continuous support on Hope! Together, we can make the world a place where hope thrives, and everyone knows ‘how’ to Shine Hope.

Keep Shining,

Kathryn

Kathryn Goetzke, MBA

Events and Engagements

Our Chief Hope Officer, Kathryn Goetzke, had a great time sharing about the Science and Power of Hope at YouthWell’s Youth Linkages Network Retreat. Watch out on our next newsletter for a preview!

Email activate@theshinehopecompany.com if you’d like to invite us to speak at your event.

Inspiring Partner Organization

Thoughts from our Program Users

“We love the materials. We used this program all year last year and plan to use it again.”

– Julie, A principal who downloaded and used our Hopeful Minds Curriculum

Moments of Hope Cards Quotes
Share the gift of hope with our Moments of Hope Cards. These pocket-sized educational cards feature inspiring hope quotes on one side and tips on how to Shine Hope on the other. Give to friends, family members, at work, and in the community. Turn your next moment with another into a Moment of Hope. Get your copies now.

Measure Your Hope
Most people don’t realize there is a Science of Hope. That you can measure it. And through our work, we have shown you can teach it. The first step in understanding your hope, is seeing how hopeful you are. Check out our free validated hope scale today.

Hopeful Cities Activations
Find out which cities are committed to activating Hope and get access to our resources to Shine Hope. Learn more.

Shine Hope Skills Research
Check out the Shine Hope Infographic to start learning the Five Keys to Shine Hope. Once you download, you’ll find clickable links so you can learn more about each of the skills we talk about in the Shine Hope framework. Download your copy.


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