Award-winning Child Advocate Touts Celebs for Helping Save At Risk Youth

New York media veteran and nationally recognized, award-winning child advocate, Steve Simpson was abused as a child. He was suicidal, had failing grades and even ran away. But for over two decades, he has been traveling the country, leading youth groups, helping save lives, and he suggests that celebs like Demi Lovato & Selena Gomez are helping offer a positive influence on teenagers and young adults and that they even possibly have saved lives, too. He will say that:  

• It’s that feeling that you’re alone with your problems which is one of the causes of hopelessness that lends to the horrible choice of suicide
• Demi Lovato & Selena Gomez let young people know they can not only survive their problems but can even be successful and happy despite their problems
• When Steve was growing up unfortunately performers and celebrities did not open up like Demi and Selena, therefore he, like so many others, would simply look at them and how great everything seemed with them and wonder "What's wrong with my life?"
• Most young people are resistant in getting help (therapy, 12 step programs and self-help groups and going to a school counselor) because of the stigma. When Demi & Selena openly talk about being in therapy or involved in self-help groups it takes away from the stigma and encourages young people to get help
• There are many young people who want to be singers, actors, musicians, writers etc. who are in abusive and dysfunctional homes who are horribly discouraged by their own family. Steve’s abusive alcoholic father took every chance he had to bash his talents and rip apart my self-esteem. Demi & Selena give an example to those talented young people to continue to not give up their dreams and talents.

Being a writer/youth advocate who has been consistent in the media since the early 1990s and has run youth and young adult groups throughout the years Steve knows what is in the minds of young people and how they react to things they hear and Demi & Selena have been consistently some of the most effective celebrities who have really helped young people.


Steve Simpson is a child advocate, child abuse survivor and media commentator who just released The Teenage and Young Adult Survival Handbook -- a small guide that is modestly tucked inside in all four of his YA adventure novels which covers most of the topics plaguing young people today—suicide, bullying, sexual abuse, physical abuse, verbal abuse, self-worth, being the child of an addict, living in a dysfunctional home, surviving school and more. Simpson was even recognized by President Barack Obama, former New York governor David Paterson and the County Executive of Nassau County for his efforts on behalf of abused children.