Izzy Hathaway, Chief of Hope Architecture
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Izzy Hathaway is a suicide prevention advocate and peer support specialist. She co-Founded and now serves as Executive Director of The Hope Network, an entirely peer-run nonprofit focused on creating new suicide prevention, intervention, and postvention techniques. She is the mind behind the HopeCubes, a breakthrough new tool aimed at eliminating suicide through tiny wooden cubes. She is also the face of Hope, a character inspired by hundreds of real survivors. She pioneers strategies that work, because she has had so much experience with strategies that don't work. She is a future leader in the field.
But before she is any of that, she is one thing. A survivor. At 21, she lost one of the people closest to her to suicide. Less than two years later, the grief drove her to attempting suicide herself. The hospital discharged her too soon, and a week later she tried again. And again. She wanted help. During the third attempt, the suicide hotline hold music was still playing. Help just wasn't there. At 27, she decided to solve that problem with a chatbot designed to keep the caller company while they're on hold. She made videos responding to nearly 100 prompts, and asked a network of people with lived experience to do the same thing. A Hope Network. Together they developed HopeNet.org to host the HopeBot, creating a comprehensive, accessible, and effective digital tool. They formed the most powerful suicide prevention tool there is: community. Izzy knows that The Hope Network is very literally life saving. After her sixth suicide attempt, she was homeless. The fifth one left her in psychosis that she was self medicating with no medical supervision, and she had nowhere to go. She told The Hope Network what happened, and less than 24 hours later she was sitting on a couch carving HopeCubes. She was warm, for the first time in a very long time. She felt something she hadn't felt in years. She felt hope. She is currently developing her journal from that time into a guided postvention resource with the help of the Network. They continue to save her life, by empowering her to tell her story. By telling her it's important to keep breathing. If you're breathing, there is Hope. |
