Join Kari Steele as she speaks with Dr. Jim Kooler.
Dr. Kooler has spent many years working in the field of Behavior Health and is currently a Special Consultant on Behavioral Health at the CA Dept. of Health Care Services (DHCS). In this role, he is responsible for leading the policy efforts to see that youth receive the behavioral health services they need. He is taking lead in the development and implementation of the CalHOPE crisis-counseling program funded by FEMA, as well as the implementation of the national 988 line for behavioral health crisis.
Today Dr. Kooler is speaking specifically about two programs available now:
Angst: Building Resilience program is an element of the CalHOPE Student Support program, which provides mental health support to youth. Angst: Building Resilience aims to help California’s youth understand what anxiety is and what it feels like, through the reflections of other young people who have experienced it. It is in collaboration with CalHOPE, the California Department of Education (CDE), the iNDIEFLIX Foundation, and Blue Shield of California. Through this initiative, the program will: • Directly address anxiety, its causes, and solutions • Help develop long-term resilience, strength, and emotional well-being • Provide strategies and techniques to help deal with the mental health impacts of COVID-19 For the current academic year (10/11/21 - 06/30/22), schools in California have access to a plug-and-play film-based mental health support program. This program is endorsed by educators, psychiatrists, and mental health advocates, and includes access to the coveted Angst documentary, a discussion guide, tip sheet, classroom exercises, and support links and materials. The program is available to all California public and publicly funded charter schools for FREE so long as they sign up to bring the program to their schools, and it can be delivered to both virtual and hybrid classrooms in English or Spanish. Help bring the Angst: Building Resilience program to your school districts by visiting: https://www.indieflix.com/california.
The other program is: Trusted Space
During the COVID-19 pandemic, we saw an urgent and critical need to support educators and students across California. A Trusted Space: Redirecting Grief to Growth is a ground-breaking 45-minute docu-training film featuring leading experts and research-based curriculum that is designed to help teachers and students work together to create confidence, healing and successful learning in a dependable environment. Available free to all California educators and school districts, A Trusted Space™ is designed to help teachers, counselors, and parents, mitigate the effects of the grief, trauma, anxiety and other emotional stressors that so many students, families, and even they themselves, are feeling as they walk – or video conference – into school this term.
A Trusted Space™ film and curriculum is available at https://www.atrustedspaceca.org/