GARRETTS SPACE
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Mission Statement
Garrett's Space is dedicated to filling gaps in supportive care for young adults stuggling with significant mental health challenges through connections programming and a holistically focused residential center
About This Cause
The Loss of Garrett Halpert and the Origins of Garrett’s Space Julie and Scott Halpert lost their beloved son, Garrett, to suicide at the age of 23. When Garrett was alive, but struggling with his mental health, Julie and Scott saw that there were insufficient support options beyond seeing his therapist to help Garrett. After Garrett passed away, they founded Garrett’s Space to create a holistically focused residential center and other programming for struggling young adults who are in danger of losing hope and dying by suicide. Garrett’s Space Target Population: young adults who are in danger of losing hope and are in need of connections and wraparound support. Garrett's Space currently is providing wellness programming for its target population, including a wellness groups that meets three days a week for a support group with peers, light movement activities and an opportunity to connect with peers in an informal setting. Our Nation’s Mental Health Crisis among our youth Surveys show that about half of young adults and high school age adolescents are struggling with depression or anxiety and as many as 10-15 percent are contemplating taking their own lives. What are Some of the Factors Driving this Epidemic? Young adults feel inadequate. They look at the state of their own lives, and with social media postings as their backdrop, they believe they have fallen short -- both of others’ expectations as well as their own. Many feel lonely and believe they have no one they can talk to or trust. Others are devastated by difficult relationships and just can’t see past them. Still others struggle financially or professionally. There are numerous macro uncertainties in our country weighing on our youth, including climate change, race relations, the current pandemic and the divisive political climate, and our society can be even more challenging for any young adult who is a person of color or identifies as LGBTQ+. Any of these items on their own can act as a trigger and tipping point for young adutls. Helping our Participants Find Reasons to be Here Our programming is focused on providing support, promoting connections, encouraging healing activities and instilling effective coping skills and resiliency. We believe that if we are effective in executing these objectives, we will reduce the likelihood of our participants losing hope and dying by suicide. Garrett’s Space -- a Community and Space for Healing and Connection Garrett’s Space has acquired a 76-acre property near Ann Arbor Michigan and is building a residential campus, including a 10,000 square foot residence and a separate creativity studio. Our participants will engage in facilitated support groups with their peers and healing activities like art, music, meditation, movement, gardening, journaling. They'll also be able to take advantage of the incredible nature at the property with walking trails, gardening and scenic pond and a creek that surrounds the property. We have broken ground on our residential campus and expect to complete it by the end of the summer in 2026. We also will bring our participants to the site for in-person programming at the existing house by the summer of 2025. We are building a warm, kind and empathetic community of peers and facilitators that will create an environment conducive to positive social interactions, feelings of camaraderie and friendships. This will hopefully instill connections and connectedness for our participants. Encouraging open and healing conversations: if young adults are reluctant to open up and discuss their issues, they are less likely to establish connections, trust that others can help them and heal. We will create an environment where our Target Population is more likely to engage by (i) encouraging conversation and positive feedback in groups, (ii) creating a safe space to share stressors, fears and losses, and (ii) provide warm and empathetic peer and professional facilitators. Join us: we have thought about those things that will attract struggling young adults to Garrett’s Space. If we can’t get them in the door, then we can’t help them. Often, our Target Population is unmotivated and demoralized and believes that nothing can help them. How will we get them to visit and stay engaged at Garrett’s Space? Our programming is designed to be attractive to our Target Population by focusing on connections and holistic healing activities that many young adults crave. Our process will be deliberative and iterative to continue to identify and provide activities that our Target Population enjoys. Healing and coping: In addition to being attractive to our Target Population, our non-medical activities and non-institutional setting are shown to provide evidence-informed mental health benefits as shown by a comprehensive literature review. We are further testing efficacy through surveys and evaluation of our participants in an iterative process and conduct research to learn which holistic activities have been determined to be effective evidence-based best practices. Hope is on the horizon: we desire to show each of our participants that there are others who feel like they do with similar and dissimilar challenges; we want them to not only see that their feelings aren’t unique but also to hear stories and encouragement from others who have struggled, but ultimately have managed to navigate through their challenges and experience better days. Staying in touch: we know that life may continue to be very challenging for our participants after they complete our program. That is why we plan to reach out, offer support and show them we care after they leave. We hope that many of them will return to Garrett’s Space as a volunteer when they are doing better to help others who are struggling. We believe that giving back will give them a sense of purpose. Creating a replicable model: We believe that one Garrett's Space residential center can only make a small dent in the need and demand for this for this critical wrap-around support. We will be capturing our best practices and creating a model that can be replicated in other geographies across the country and for other age groups.