The ReachOut Story
It all began in Australia over 10 years ago.
ReachOut’s story started on the other side of the world—in Australia back in 1992, when a cousin of Jack Heath, founder of Inspire, took his life. When trying to make sense of it, Jack had a vision that young people could be connected with comprehensive resources and support through the media they use. With this support, lives could be saved and young people’s mental health and well-being could be improved. Inspire Foundation was founded and with the then escalating rates of youth suicide, Inspire launched the ReachOut website in 1998.
During these last 10 years, ReachOut Australia has worked successfully with popular radio shows to raise both money and awareness for ReachOut and what it can offer teens and young adults. ReachOut also toured over 300 schools throughout rural and regional Australia to get the word out. Australia has seen a 56 percent reduction in youth suicide rates since ReachOut’s inception. In fact, 3 out of 4 Australian young people know ReachOut.
It is pretty impressive and you might be thinking “How did they do that?” It is very simple actually. They went to where Australian young people are. ReachOut offered a safe online space where teens and young adults could get the information they wanted and needed.
To ensure ReachOut stayed relevant and true to Australian young people, the ReachOut ‘crew’ established a youth involvement program, ensuring that young people told them how to run the show. They also began to add interactive features such a forum (coming to the US in 2010!) and an SMS service that teens and young adults could subscribe to for free to receive weekly text messages on managing stress and staying positive leading up to exams. ReachOut Australia also released ReachOut Central (ROC), an online interactive game where players get to experience real life situations and learn from virtual experience. We’ve got some cool things up our sleeve so be on the look-out for enhancements on ReachOut USA in the near future.
Looking forward to 2020, ReachOut Australia has big plans. After 10 years and a cool celebration at the famous Sydney Opera House, Inspire Australia recently held a conference inviting all members of the Inspire community (including teens and young adults who chose to come) to create a vision for the year 2020 for Inspire and for ReachOut. It is exciting time there as well as they move into the next phase of ReachOut!
Bringing ReachOut to the United States.
Inspire Australia and their ReachOut crew, in particular, have helped us give you the best ReachOut we could by sharing content and ideas for how to build ReachOut USA. And for that, we are grateful. But you might ask “Why start ReachOut here in the US?” No one would have thought, least of all, Jack that an online chat with Deepak Chopra, at that time living in San Francisco, would have been the starting point for ReachOut coming to the US. After a series of chats with Deepak, about issues facing teens and young adults in the United States, Jack had a question: could ReachOut’s services impact young people’s lives in the United States?
Back in 2006, Jack worked with a company called The Bridgespan Group, a U.S.-based nonprofit strategic consulting firm, to answer that question and find out if a service like ReachOut existed in the United States. The answer to the first question was ‘yes’ – ReachOut could impact lives here in the United States. And the answer to the second question was ‘no’ – there was no comparable service in the United States - despite the critical mental health needs of many young Americans and the staggering rates of depression and suicide. Here in the United States, suicide is the third leading cause of death for teens and using national data, we estimate 12 million young people is the US experience depression. Something needed to be done. ReachOut needed to come to the United States.
With funding from our Founding Partner, the Macquarie Group Foundation, along with generous support from News Corporation and the Bristol-Myers Squibb Foundation, Inspire USA Foundation was established in 2007 with offices in the world’s technology hub – San Francisco, California. Staff was hired and the development of the US version of ReachOut began.
Inspire USA Foundation also started building partnerships with other organizations and working with teens and young adults to make the content of the ReachOut USA relevant to the pressing needs and issues for US teens and young adults. Through collaboration with Ohio State University’s Student Health Services, Inspire began talking to young people to see what ReachOut should offer. With Ohio State’s help, Inspire also was able to sponsor its first film competition. You can find the submissions from this competition on the ReachOut website. We want to continue to receive content from teens and young adults across the US. Whether it is a text, audio or film piece of content – which doesn’t have to be professional or polished—we want it! Check out our Share Your Story section of our website for more information.
Inspire USA has also joined forces with the Ad Council and the DDB advertising agency to support a national media campaign on suicide prevention that features ReachOut—so be on the lookout for that.
ReachOut USA uses the internet to provide information teens and young adults need and want in an anonymous, non-threatening and non-judgmental space. We believe that ReachOut USA can be valuable part of how teens and young adults handle the tough times they face. We are excited to be here but our story is just beginning. We hope you want to be part of it.
But it doesn’t end here. ReachOut is going to other countries too.
ReachOut isn’t only going to be in Australia and the United States. Jack now has a much larger vision for the well-being of teens and young adults. From his perspective, no one person needs to feel hopeless and without support. So beginning with the roll out here in the US, ReachOut has become a global brand with the goal of being available around the world. Each country will have their own organization and their own version of ReachOut to make sure that the content is relevant for the teens and young adults ReachOut will be reaching.
The newest member of the Inspire family is Inspire Ireland. We’re excited about learning from our Irish colleagues about the issues and concerns for teens and young adults in Ireland and how we both can share our content and experience to benefit teens and young adults in the two countries.
When you are a part of ReachOut, not only are you a part of a community of millions of teens and young adults going through similar issues or who have similar questions here in the US – you are part of a global community of teens and young adults. We are excited to be part of a global initiative to help millions of teens and young adults lead happier lives. We hope you are too!
