Children/Youth and Climate
Additional Resources
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Webinar:
May 2023 Webinar from UC Center for Climate, Health and Equity, Climate Change and Mental Health Intersections. CPA leader Elizabeth Pinsky begins her discussion at the 5:50 minute in this recording.
Books:
How to Talk to Your Kids About Climate Change is a precious and necessary book delivered at the perfect moment.
Author Harriet Shugarman skillfully guides us through this most perilous time by helping us to look squarely at the climate crisis while simultaneously showing us how to navigate through the fire.
Climate Change and Youth Mental Health: Multidisciplinary Perspectives provides a unique synthesis of the science, psychology, and social forces that can be brought to bear on supporting young people's psychological well-being.
Climate change is the biggest threat of our century, one that will impact every aspect of children's lives: their physical, emotional, moral, financial, and social health and well-being. The relationship between the climate crisis and mental health in young people is therefore by definition multi-disciplinary and multi-cultural, requiring multiple perspectives on how to understand and guide younger generations.
Fur & Feather Stand Together is a picture book about animals and people across the globe standing together against climate change.
Fur & Feather Stand Together tells the tale of two unlikely friends—a puffin and a polar bear—joining together with their community to save the ice that is melting around them. But what starts as a small effort to solve this local problem grows, through stories and small acts of compassion, into a global movement of animals and humans, all standing up with and for each other.
Coco’s Fire: Changing Climate Anxiety into Climate Action offers a model conversation written by mental health professionals and environmental scientists for how to have “The Climate Talk” with children.
Climate Change can be scary, so talking to children about this topic in a way that is both honest and empowering is important. Join Coco the squirrel and her dad on their quest to stop climate change, and watch as her worries transform into the very thing that inspires her.
What to Do When Climate Change Scares You: A Kid's Guide to Dealing with Climate Anxiety is very adaptable for classroom use, and provides guidance for parents and caregivers in how to have useful and supportive conversations. Leslie Davenport, Climate Psychology Educator and Consultant, has authoried this important workbook for 6-12 years
Video Resource:
Climate Distress in Youth
Produced by: Jen Darnell, DO, Max Galvan, MD, JJ Vasquez, MFA, Emogene Bidegain, Audrey Taylor
Narration by: Anthony Nguyen, MD
RAFFI Foundation:
Many have grown up with Canadian Child Troubadour Raffi singing about the love of earth through "Baby Beluga" and "Down by the Bay". He now leads caring for the world's children through his Child Honouring Foundation and is deeply concerned about climate change.
He has used his voice through song to make the point.
Patient Education:
Climate Rx from the Boston Children’s Hospital Pediatric Environmental Health Center: printable patient education materials on health risks of climate change.
Climate Mental Health Network:
Parents and caregivers resources include “How to talk to Gen Zers about Climate Emotions”, “Climate Just-the-Facts Talk Script for Middle and High School Students”, and “Climate Just-the-Facts Talk Script for Elementary School Students”, just to name a few!