BeThere.org is an educational tool that helps youth recognize when a peer is struggling with mental health issues and shows them how to offer the best support
surveyed 1,000 young people across Canada. The results showed 83 per cent had supported a friend struggling with their mental health, yet only 39 per cent of them felt they were prepared to offer the support needed.
“When we first started the website, there wasn’t much to compete against in terms of engaging content,” says Windeler. “We found lots of great mental-health content, but it was buried under PDFs, academic language and medical jargon. We set about creating a visual and interactive resource that was easy to understand and engaging.”
Eric Windeler and Sandra Hanington launched Jack.org in 2010 to honour their eldest son Jack, who died by suicide in March of that year.The Webby Awards, which recognize the best on the Internet, were handed out May 19 during a star-studded online broadcast that included presenters such as Michelle Obama and Dr. Anthony Fauci.now has over 260,000 unique visitors from across Canada, the U.S. and Britain.
As Windeler notes, suicide is still the leading health-related cause of death for young people in Canada, with one in seven reporting having suicidal thoughts, to say nothing of the ones who don’t report. This year, 150,000 will act on their thoughts by attempting suicide and, for hundreds of them, the attempt will be fatal, he adds.
“We were a happy, healthy family in 2010 when Jack went off to Queen’s for his first year. We didn’t know he was struggling, and we lost him,” Hanington says. “We felt his loss vividly and clearly. We’re proud of how far the charity Jack.org has come, but it’s still not enough. We’ve only started to touch the tsunami of support and skills that are needed.”for the weekly Health & Wellness newsletter for the latest news and advice.
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