Singer-songwriter Jocelyn and Boys Town Collaborate on a “Kindness Tour”
by Leo Adam Biga
Image Credit: Jocelyn & Jeff McClain
It’s not often the messages of a performing artist and of a human services provider converge as neatly as they do with singer-songwriter Jocelyn and the Boys Town National Hotline. The artist and the 24/7 resource are aligning the positive affirmations they employ to partner on a self-love themed Kindness Tour for schools nationwide. The project is getting a boost from HOPE Squad, a schools-based peer-to-peer suicide prevention program.
Jocelyn speaks to youth in turmoil through her heartfelt lyrics, music videos and social media posts that address everything from breakups to bullying to self-esteem and identity issues. Boys Town speaks to at-risk youth and families through the active listening and empathetic advice its hotline crisis counselors provide as well as the tools, tips and referrals on its yourlifeyourvoice.org website.
The collaboration is the latest development in Jocelyn’s event-filled young career. She went from busking on Old Market street corners as a teen to killing it on “Live at the Apollo Theatre” to impressing Darius Rucker enough on “Undercover Boss” that he became a mentor. Then, in 2019, she signed a recording deal with music giant BMG. Her debut album for the label, “Different,” released earlier this year. The LP features a mix of old and new songs that celebrate life amid the coming of age trials attending adolescence.
At 23, Jocelyn isn’t far removed from the angst she writes and sings about. With the pandemic putting a halt to performing live, she can relate to how life, no matter what your age, continues throwing curves you must adapt to. In her case, the loss of paid concert gigs forced her to find a steady new income source, and so she’s working at a local Runza to help pay the bills. She’s also proof life is full of new opportunities, such as her being named the Capitol District’s musician-in-residence, a year-long gig that comes with a rent-free apartment in the downtown development.
Image Credit: Jocelyn & Jeff McClain
Even though she’s been lately limited to streaming performances, outside of shows at The Jewell, she earned recognition again from the Omaha Entertainment and Arts Awards. She’s been an OEAA nominee seven times and an award winner now four times.
Just as writing and playing music is healing for her, she hopes her work can sooth or inspire others, especially in the extra isolation and disruption of the pandemic. She’s also aware that reaching out to somebody can be a way to work through things. She wants her fans and the general public to know that she’s found help working with a therapist and that free resources like the hotline and website are available to anyone having a tough time coping.
“Growing up,” she said, “I never addressed the things that I felt weren’t very stable in my life. I feel during this pandemic everyone around the world is doing a lot of reflection, so I just took some time to really get to know myself and try to figure out what was really going on deep down inside. I ended up getting a therapist and that’s been really helpful.”
Her manager, Jeff McClain of Midlands Music Group in Omaha, is someone she also leans on for support. Early fame and success came before she figured herself out, much less what she was expressing in her music.
“It was very hard for me to understand what it was we were doing,” she said. “I was having a hard time with myself, believing in myself. I was looking online at people who have great careers and success stories and comparing myself. I was like, ‘I’m never going to be like them. I’m not this or I’m not that.’ But Jeff was saying, ‘Jocelyn, that’s just you doubting yourself. Your music is beautiful and it’s going to touch so many lives.’ He gives me so much confidence in myself and he’s always building me up.”
Having besties who have your back is vital, especially when you feel nobody gets you or you don’t fit in, as she felt.
“I feel during this pandemic everyone around the world is doing a lot of reflection, so I just took some time to really get to know myself and try to figure out what was really going on deep down inside.”
-Jocelyn
Image credit: Jocelyn & Jeff McClain
“It’s not bad to be a free spirit, but sometimes you really do need that support system that can bring you back and ground you. It’s kind of frowned upon right now in popular culture and it shouldn’t be. We need to listen to other people’s stories and be inspired. We need to figure out the why.”
She thinks it’s precisely at those vulnerable times when we don’t feel anyone understands or cares, that a hotline like Boys Town’s, or a Hope Squad peer, can make a difference.
Meant to Be
Her partnership with these groups might never have happened if the director of her “Love Letter” music video, David Weiss, who also shoots for Boys Town, hadn’t shared his enthusiasm for her music with Boys Town marketing manager Melissa Farris.
“When David Weiss wrapped up Jocelyn’s music video he sent me a note, ‘This girl’s got something special. Her music is right in line with the Boys Town mission,’” recalled Farris. “He encouraged me to reach out to her, so we did.”
But not before Farris and Boys Town National Hotline director Ginny Gohr watched the video. Neither was familiar with her work until then.
“I thought the song “Love Letter” was beautiful – how the lyrics are able to tell that story of ‘don’t give up on yourself,’” said Farris, “and this is all a part of you becoming the person that you’re meant to be. It says there’s going to be tough times. That really resonated with me and the work that Ginny [Gohr] and her team are doing at the hotline.”
Ginny Gohr is the national hotline director for Boys Town.
“The lyrics just really spoke to me as well,” said Gohr. “I thought the concept of ‘write a love letter to yourself’ was so awesome. On Boys Town’s yourlifeyourvoice.org we have lots of tips and tools for young people to journal positive things about themselves. It just seemed like this was such a wonderful complement to what we do. It was like this partnership was meant to be.”
Not coincidentally, the song sprang out of a tough patch Jocelyn went through working on the “Different” album in L.A. Nothing was working and she couldn’t convey what she wanted to the producer.
“The next day I was on the way to the studio, beating myself up, having a really hard time,” Jocelyn said.
During the new recording session, with no ideas emerging and the pressure mounting, McClain suggested she freestyle. “I was very nervous, thinking I am not good enough, this is going to be terrible. I just closed my eyes and started playing and within five minutes I had the song “Love Letter.” The words came out of me, ‘This time is the last time, I swear this time is the last.’”
Why did things suddenly flow?
“I was tired of feeling there’s something else out there that’s so magnificent it’s going to help me with my life just like that, and everything’s going to be perfect. I knew in that moment I didn’t want anybody to have to feel like this. Why should we have to try to be perfect? That’s not the point of life. The point of life is to be happy and self-aware of who you are and how to handle yourself. We’re all just trying to get by. Life isn’t always sunshine and happiness. Realizing you’re not ever ready and you don’t have to be perfect is what’s so great about being a human being.”
The rest of the album followed in fits and starts.
She was unsure about “Love Letter” until Boys Town wanted to make it the kickoff for a hotline campaign. It was the confirmation she needed that the struggle behind the song was worth it. By the time she cut a public service announcement, the message of the music and the campaign were one. “Everything started coming together,” she said. “Little pieces of my life that I’ve experienced, different people, seeing what’s healthy and what’s not healthy.” The more of the artist’s music Boys Town sampled, the more the alignment of its mission and her message made sense. “All of her music I think really embodies what we’re also trying to get out to people,” Farris said.
Melissa Farris is a marketing manager for Boys Town.
Immersed in the Project
Both Gohr and Farris are impressed by how much Jocelyn’s thrown herself into the project.
“She came and toured the hotline. She wanted to know how she could be trained to become a counselor,” Farris said. “She is very passionate about it. Most people you work with are focused on what’s in it for me, and Jocelyn is not like that at all. Without any prompting she’s out there talking to people on all of her social media channels saying, ‘Hey, call or text the hotline, visit yourlifeyourvoice, these are great resources.”
Since its 1989 launch, the crisis line has handled more than 10 million contacts, sad Gohr. The yourlifeyourvoice site logs an additional half-million or more visits per year.
The hotline is part of a national network of crisis centers that respond to a wide range of contacts via phone, chat and text. Everyone from young children to teens, young adults and parents utilize the Boys Town hotline. Relatively few contacts require intervention by emergency responders, but there are any number of scenarios where the person initiating the contact indicates signs of anxiety or depression and perhaps describes thoughts of self-harm. For professionals like Gohr, there’s particular concern for young people who may not feel there’s anyone they can confide in.
“What’s really exciting about the efforts of Jocelyn and the Hope Squad is that peer-to-peer dynamic they bring,” Gohr said. “Kids will listen to their friends or others their own age a little bit more than they will to adults. This is providing the hotline and Boys Town such a great opportunity to send our message, and we’re hopeful they’ll listen more because of that peer-to-peer approach.”
Hope Squad founder-CEO Gregory A. Hudnall is excited by the synergy. "Hope Squad's goal is to prevent suicide through public awareness and education and to reduce the stigma associated with mental health,” he explained. “Finding fun, interactive ways to reach communities across America and open a discussion on mental health is imperative right now, particularly with the social isolation associated with COVID-19. The Kindness Tour promotes inclusivity and positivity through music, which is a great way to connect to young people. We are excited to provide schools across the country with resources from Hope Squad and Boys Town, and we can't wait to watch Jocelyn perform her inspiring songs to a variety of audiences."
“Finding fun, interactive ways to reach communities across America and open a discussion on mental health is imperative right now, particularly with the social isolation associated with COVID-19.”
Hope Squad founder-CEO Gregory A. Hudnall
Jocelyn firmly believes reaching out to someone, whether a peer or adult, is prevention 101.
“If you don’t learn to control your behavior and patterns and if you don’t take the chance to know yourself, you’re going to explode,” she said. “Maintaining a stable environment is what Boys Town is here to do – to help you get that maintenance check for your mind and emotions and to get coping skills you can rely on.” Getting Hope Squad involved with the Kindness Tour was key, Gohr said, with its network of hundreds of schools. Jocelyn works directly with students in Kindness Tour schools where Hope Squad has a presence. Boys Town has a track record of offering on-site teacher education and life skills in schools. But the pandemic put a stop to that.
“We offered to schools a program called coping through the teen years,” Gohr said, “mostly targeting junior high and high school students to let them know their life is kind of a rollercoaster. You’re going to have ups and downs. It’s a normal part of life and you’re going to get through it. We talk about things you can do to get yourself back up during those down times. We talk about coping skills. We emphasize the yourlifeyourvoice website and its tools and techniques, such as journaling. We discuss praising yourself and having support systems with people you feel comfortable talking to. We explore going outside your comfort zone in terms of when it’s appropriate and necessary to be talking to an adult.”
Then when COVID hit, Farris said, “All of a sudden we couldn’t go into schools anymore. We needed to figure out a way to be in schools because kids are still dealing with these issues, they still need to have these resources.” Enter the Kindness Tour. Participating schools engage students in educational activities curated by Boys Town during a designated Kindness Week. Each day a different Jocelyn song introduces certain themes. The week culminates in a Jocelyn concert. Depending on where schools are on the pandemic continuum, they can choose to do the program in person or virtually. They can add to it or subtract from it as needed “It’s easily customizable,” Farris said.
Coming of Age
She feels she came to the attention of Boys Town at the right time in her life and career to help make a difference. Her collaboration coincided with a greater maturity in herself and in her music.
“Now I’m singing about personal things that are not about breakups but more breakthroughs. Just personal things that happened to me when I was younger that when I tried talking to people about it it wasn’t really accepted or people weren’t listening. So now I’m finally able to process everything that’s happened and my music is changing. Now I want to write about my family.”
“Now I want to write about my family.”
-Jocelyn
Image Credit: Jocelyn & Jeff McClain
Though she’s never had anyone close to her commit suicide, she knows trauma causes people to act out in ways that hurt themselves and others. The work that Boys Town and Hope Squad does is personal to her.
“I have a best friend who walked out on his wife and daughter. It’s similar to what happened to me when I was growing up. He doesn’t know how to come back from that, so he doesn’t get to know his daughter now on a beautiful level. And she’s going to grow up thinking – ‘What’s wrong with me? Why did my dad leave me?’ Well, there’s nothing wrong with her. It breaks my heart because children need their parents to be there and to provide a stable environment.”
Part of well-being and mindfulness is having priorities straight. “The best things we should be caring about are not materialistic things but seeking memories and spending lots of time with family and with the people that we love,” Jocelyn said “That goes hand in hand with the music that I write and with what I’m experiencing.” She knows from experience that getting help can be the first step in becoming the best version of one’s self.
“That’s why I’m using my name and music to let people know they can contact the Boys Town hotline and visit the website at any time. I can’t wait to get the message out. It means a lot to me.” The messages found there jive with the messages on her album. ”Different” is about my middle school and high school self. I never felt like I belonged where I grew up. It’s an anthem about learning how to be confident in what you’ve got, about being confident in being different, and knowing that’s okay because everybody is different. There is no person the exact same as anyone else. And everybody has stuff they’re dealing with.”
Finding acceptance and grace goes hand-in-hand with the work of Boys Town. “They’re all about teaching families and children how to cope with things,” Jocelyn said, “with what they have been given with their environment and how to do better. It’s something I wish I would have had growing up.”
To reach the Boys Town National Hotline, call 1-800-448-3000 or text VOICE to 20121. The speech and hearing impaired can email hotline@boystown.org. You can text or email Boys Town here.
Link to the Kindness curriculum here.