Lady Gaga’s foundation teams up with suicide prevention group for Please Stay Pledge

A foundation created by Lady Gaga is launching a suicide prevention resource amid a rising number of young people reporting struggles with mental health during the coronavirus pandemic.
The Born This Way Foundation announced this week that it’s teaming up with Find Your Anchor, a suicide prevention and awareness group, to launch what it’s calling the Please Stay Pledge.
The vow is an agreement to “stay alive.”
“Even when the world seems to stop spinning, I promise I will keep going,” the pledge states. “I promise to keep fighting.”
The effort from the Born This Way Foundation, which the “Rain on Me” singer founded with her mother, Cynthia Germanotta, in 2012, comes after the Children’s Hospital Association and the American Academy of Pediatrics recently noted a nearly 20 percent increase in suicide attempts that resulted in hospital visits last summer. Hospital visits for disruptive behavior disorders increased by more than 40 percent, according to the groups.
A Centers for Disease Control and Prevention report from last June found that 1 in 4 respondents between the ages of 18 and 24 said they had thought about suicide in the previous 30 days.
The Please Stay Pledge, Lady Gaga’s nonprofit said in a news release, was created “as a response to the troubling increase in rates of depression, suicide, and anxiety disorders among young people in 2020 and to help overcome an ‘epidemic of hopelessness.'”
In addition to suicide prevention hotline contact information, the pledge site also offers self-care tips and suggestions for “soul-filling acts,” which include things such as “smiling at a stranger” and “being inspired by a TED Talk.”
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