Who's on Your Bench?

Written By GoGet.Fit Content Development Team

You are having a problem with a friend. Something happened online, and you are not sure whether it is a joke, bullying, or something more serious. You could ask your best friend, but your best friend is already furious and currently recommending approximately seventeen terrible ideas.

Who else could you talk to?

Knowing who can help, what they can help with, and when to involve them is an important health and safety skill. You do not have to solve every problem alone to be independent. In fact, knowing when to bring in someone else is part of becoming more independent.

Your community is bigger than you think

When people hear community support, they sometimes picture an office somewhere with a sign on the door. Community support is much bigger than that.

It can include parents and caregivers, relatives, teachers, school counsellors, coaches, Elders, doctors, nurses, youth workers, recreation leaders, cultural or faith communities, mentors, counsellors, community organizations and youth programs. It also includes people your age who can listen, encourage you and help you feel that you belong.

The interesting part is that these people do different jobs in your support network.

A friend may know you extremely well but know very little about treating an injury. A coach may be excellent at helping you deal with a disagreement on a team but not know what to do about an ongoing mental health concern. A health professional may know a lot about health but not understand what happened in your group chat unless you explain it.

Quick challenge: Who would you choose?

For each situation, decide who you would approach first. There may be more than one good answer.

Did you choose the same person every time?

Probably not. That is exactly the point.

Mentors: borrowing somebody else's experience

A mentor is someone who can listen, encourage you, ask useful questions and share experience. Your mentor does not need an official badge that says MENTOR.

It could be an older cousin, coach, teacher, Elder, neighbour, community leader or another adult you trust. A good mentor does not make every decision for you. They can help you see choices, consequences or possibilities you might have missed.

Suppose you want to quit something after one awful week. A mentor might help you figure out whether you genuinely no longer enjoy it, whether you are reacting to one bad experience, or whether something about the situation really does need to change.

Try this: Your unofficial mentors

Think of two adults outside your immediate household whom you would be comfortable asking for advice.

Now make the question harder:

Is it because they listen? Keep things private when appropriate? Stay calm? Know you well? Tell you the truth even when it is not exactly what you hoped to hear?

Those qualities may be more important than someone's job title.

Counselling: help figuring things out

Sometimes you need more than advice. Counsellors and other trained professionals can help young people work through stress, emotions, relationships, difficult experiences, substance use and other challenges.

Counselling is not necessarily someone sitting across from you saying, "Here is what you must do." Often, the goal is almost the opposite. A counsellor can help you understand what is happening, identify what matters to you, consider different possibilities and develop skills for dealing with similar situations in the future.

Good support can therefore increase your agency, which is your ability to make choices and act on them.

Groups count too

Not every community support looks like counselling.

Sports, recreation programs, art groups, gaming clubs, cultural activities, volunteering, outdoor programs, youth groups and other community activities can create something humans need: connection.

Groups also give you a place to practise social and emotional skills in real situations. You learn how to join in, communicate, cooperate, disagree, apologize, solve problems, handle frustration, encourage someone and occasionally work with a person who would definitely not have been your first choice for the group project.

Those are life skills disguised as ordinary Tuesday afternoons.

Groups can also expand your support network. You may join because you like climbing, drawing, coding, basketball, music or volunteering, but eventually the relationships you develop there may become just as important as the activity.

Build your support bench

A sports team would be in trouble if it had only one player available for every position. Your support network works in a similar way.

Try creating your own support bench. You do not need to write people's names if you would rather keep them private. Roles are enough.

See whether you can identify someone you could approach for:

If several of those spaces are blank, that does not mean something is wrong with you. It gives you useful information: there may be parts of your support network worth building.

The 10-second support question

When you are facing an important health or safety decision, try asking yourself:

That third question can completely change what happens next.

Suppose someone offers you a vape and says, "It's basically harmless." You could make your decision using that person's expertise, which in this particular situation consists mainly of possessing a vape.

Or you could check reliable health information or ask someone with actual health knowledge.

Your first choice doesn't always have to work

There is another part of help-seeking that people do not talk about enough.

You can ask someone for help and have it go badly.

Someone might not understand. They might be busy. They may minimize the problem. They might simply be the wrong person for that particular situation.

That does not mean there is no help available.

Thought experiment: What would you tell a friend?

Suppose your friend tells a trusted adult about something serious and feels brushed off.

Your friend says:

What would you tell them?

Now ask yourself whether you would follow the same advice if you were the person who needed help.

We are sometimes much better at recognizing when other people deserve support than when we do.

Where can young people actually go?

Across Alberta and Canada, support exists in schools and communities as well as online and by phone. Depending on what is happening, a starting point could be a trusted adult, teacher, school counsellor, coach, Elder, doctor, nurse, pharmacist, youth worker, recreation leader or another qualified community professional.

Alberta also has youth-focused services such as Kickstand, which connects young people with mental health, substance-use, peer, health and social supports. 211 Alberta can help people find appropriate community and social services when they know they need something but do not know where to begin. Across Canada, Kids Help Phone provides young people with confidential support and professional counselling.

There are also specialized services for situations involving violence, abuse, sexual health, substance use, mental health and other concerns. You do not have to memorize every organization that exists. A more useful skill is knowing how to find an appropriate one when you need it.

One last challenge: The support swap

Choose one difficult decision a Grade 8 student could realistically face. It could involve friends, online behaviour, health, substances, school, relationships, physical activity, stress or personal safety.

Now change only one thing in the story:

What changes?

Maybe they learn something they did not know. Maybe somebody notices a risk they missed. Maybe they realize they have another option. Maybe they become confident enough to say no. Sometimes the decision itself does not change at all, but the person understands much better why they are making it.

That is what community support can do.

Independence doesn't mean doing everything alone

Growing independence means making more decisions for yourself. But responsible independence also means recognizing when a decision has consequences you do not completely understand.

Adults do this constantly. Doctors consult other doctors. Mechanics ask other mechanics. Coaches talk with other coaches. People who make difficult decisions well usually build networks of people whose knowledge and judgement they trust.

Your community can be part of your decision-making toolkit too.

The goal is not to ask someone else what to do every time life gets complicated. It is to become increasingly capable of deciding what you can handle yourself, when another perspective would help, and when a situation needs professional or immediate support.

Sometimes responsible decision making begins with making the decision.

And sometimes it begins with: