Choctaw High junior is working to end teen suicide. Now she's taking her mission national.

FORT WALTON BEACH — A junior at Choctawhatchee High School will represent the Okaloosa County School District as a part of a national council looking at ways to reduce youth suicide and support their peers during times of crisis.

Angelique Patterson was the first student from Florida to be selected for the Hope Squad National Council. Hope Squad is a peer-to-peer suicide prevention program.

The council consists of juniors and seniors who have spent at least a year in Hope Squads at schools across the country.

“Only 36 students across the nation are chosen to be on this national council. Only one in the state of Florida, and that’s Angelique,” School District Superintendent Marcus Chambers said at a Wednesday press conference announcing her achievement.

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There are more than 1,200 schools across 35 states that have Hope Squads. The OCSD is the first to implement the program in the Florida Panhandle. Chambers said he expects to have squads in every secondary school by the end of the school year.

“We know over the last two years especially, we have students who might be struggling with mental illness, and even employees and families,” he said. “So everything that we can do as a school district to support our students, we think is absolutely vital and important.”

The School district began implementing the program at Choctaw in 2020, although the school year was cut short. Eglin Federal Credit Union and Impact100 of Northwest Florida contributed funding to help get the program underway.

Okaloosa School Board Vice-Chair Dr. Diane Kelley said the program was created based on the findings of a group of educators and psychologists who studied suicide prevention programs and the actions that led teens to think about ending their lives.

“What we know about teens who commit this act is they almost always tell someone before they do it,” Kelley said. “The unfortunate thing is they don’t tell an adult. They tell another student. And right along with that, they tell that trusted friend, ‘Keep this a secret'."

Students are selected to join the program by their peers. They are not expected to act as counselors. Instead, they are trained to recognize signs that a fellow student is in distress, how to speak to that student and the actions to take if a peer confides in them.

Each is given a set of business cards with a list of crisis and intervention resources, including the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline, Drug and Poison Control, Crisis Text Line, Mobile Response Team and the Okaloosa County Sheriff’s Office.

The program has already saved lives at Choctaw. Principal Michelle Heck teared up as she spoke about how students came together this year to support one of their peers who was struggling with suicidal thoughts.

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“This is really personal to Choctaw. I have seen the power of Hope Squad in action,” she said. “One morning, unbeknownst to me, we had a student who was in crisis and shared some concerning thoughts with a friend of theirs.”

The student was not a Hope Squad member, but knew who the members were and reached out. Immediate action was taken to ensure the student had someone to talk to and was connected with resources. Heck said the program worked exactly as designed.

“I’m very proud as a principal, very proud of our Hope Squad and very proud for Okaloosa County. I’ve known Angelique since she was a freshman,” Heck said. “She is a valued Hope Squad member. I am thrilled that she has been selected and I am very proud of her.”

Patterson will attend her first meeting with the council on Aug. 23, and said she is excited to begin collaborating with other Hope Squad members on initiatives and activities that she can bring back to the School District.

Council members will attend over 50 national events, plan and facilitate state and national leadership conferences, connect with Hope Squads across the country, meet with government leaders and speak on local, national and international panels.

“This is such a great honor for me to be a part of the National Council, and it started here at Choctaw,” Patterson said. “It means everything to me because it’s about listening to your peers and hearing what they have to say. ... I just want to see this grow to the greatest extent that it can.”

Patterson said students often feel more comfortable talking with their peers, and she believes it is important to know how to show them support in their time of need. Many share similar struggles with cyberbullying or other stressors in high school.

“It’s stressful sometimes being a high schooler and the pressure that you’re under,” she said. “So for me to be someone that my peers feel like they can come to, I can’t even explain how great that is for me and how that feels for me to be able to help them with anything that they need.”

The School District plans to expand the program to elementary schools in the upcoming school year.

Patterson hopes to one day be a clinical psychologist and thanked her fellow Hope Squad members and teachers for helping her succeed.

“Hope Squad has just had an extremely large impact on all of our lives, and I couldn’t be more grateful for that," she said. "I want to continue with this process and I can’t wait to bring the initiatives from the National Council back here to Choctaw. That means the world.”

This article originally appeared on Northwest Florida Daily News: Choctaw High School junior selected for Hope Squad National Council