WIBM’s Blair Daly recently spoke with Kirsten Fuchs, who is a Certified Prevention Professional in Spokane. She is the Youth Cannabis and Commercial Tobacco Prevention Program Coordinator for the NorthEast Washington Educational Service District 101 (NEWESD 101), which serves over 100 public, private, and charter schools collectively educating over 100,000 students. Kirsten earned a Masters of Education in Educational Leadership from Eastern Washington University and completed a graduate certificate in Social Emotional Learning for Educational Equity.
Part of Kirsten’s job in recent years has involved helping Spokane-area middle schools and high schools get set up with the Hope Squad program. Hope Squad came onto WIBM’s radar through the Kellen CARES Foundation, which is one of 20+ nonprofit organizations to date that have endorsed the legislation in Washington that would create a state commission on the well-being of boys and men.
Watch the video and hear from Kirsten Fuchs.
Schools that are expected to have the Hope Squad program during the 2024-2025 school year include:
Spokane Public Schools — Ferris High School, Lewis and Clark High School, North Central High School, Shadle Park High School, Rogers High School, Yasuhara Middle School, Sacajawea Middle School
Mead School District — Mountainside Middle School, Highland Middle School, Northwood Middle School
East Valley School District — East Valley High School
Giving youth skills to be a lifeline for their peers
Below is a partial transcript of the video above, lightly edited.
Kirsten Fuchs (opening clip): I have nothing but wonderful things to say about the Hope Squad curriculum and about the camaraderie that’s built among those students working together. We know from data and from qualitative information that youth are really reaching out to their peers, and even more so after the pandemic. Why not give them skills so they can be a lifeline for their friends and their peers?
Blair Daly (voiceover intro): Kirsten Fuchs is a Certified Prevention Professional in Spokane. She’s the Youth Cannabis and Commercial Tobacco Prevention Program Coordinator for the NorthEast Washington Educational Service District 101. Kirsten has a Masters of Education in Educational Leadership and a graduate certificate in Social Emotional Learning for Educational Equity.
Part of her job in recent years has involved helping Spokane-area schools get set up with the Hope Squad program, which is something I first learned about following the work of the Kellen CARES Foundation.
Blair Daly: There’s a statewide program that’s focused on preventing cannabis use and tobacco use among youth. What is that program?
Kirsten Fuchs: It’s the Youth Cannabis and Commercial Tobacco Prevention Program, and it’s funded through the Washington State Department of Health. Community work is one of the best ways for us to be able to do youth prevention work, so it’s a good combination of in-school programs where we assist with drug prevention and other prevention efforts, and then it’s also community-based, where we spur organizations to partner together. It also encompasses a lot of strategies that impact young people’s environments — things like messaging on billboards, adjustments to local policies, and so on.
Kimber Erickson connected Kirsten to Hope Squad program
Blair Daly: How was it that you got connected with the Kellen CARES Foundation?
Kirsten Fuchs: Kimber Erickson started Kellen CARES a few years ago. One of the things she recognized about her own journey and her own experience was that she wished there had been something in her son’s school to provide some extra support.
We know that youth go to their peers before they go to adults. They go to their friends. They’re going to go to people who are like them before they go to an adult for help. So Hope Squad is this really great program that allows us to teach youth some language to talk to each other effectively and to help refer each other to an adult….[Continued in the video]
See related: 4 out of 5 youth suicides in Washington are males: Our testimony to legislators in Olympia [Video]