Get Started With
The Climate Psychiatry Alliance

• Officially sign up as a member. While signing up, opt into our listserv and monthly newsletter to receive up-to-the-minute communications and connect with our community.

• Follow us on Twitter, Instagram, Youtube, LinkedIn, and Facebook

• Consider joining the Early Career Network (We count anyone who is new to climate and mental health as early career!), email Ben Liu at climatepsychiatryalliance@gmail.com to get involved.

  • Attend a Climate Talk, on the 2nd Tuesday of each month, hosted by CPA’s Early Career Network —All are welcome

• Donate to CPA, so we can keep growing

• Use Your Voice:

  • Join our Climate and Mental Health Slide Deck Repository where you can find climate and mental health focused presentations to draw inspiration from or contribute your own slide deck to the repository for others to learn from.

  • Writing Opportunities, Speaking Engagements, Grant-Writing and so much more, email Jaena!

• Ask us about our Regional Groups!

  • Interested in connecting with those in your geographic region?

  • Contact Jaena at membershipcoordinator@climatepsychiatry.org

• Connect with CPA Members through engaging forums

  • CPA frequently offers virtual programing which anyone can join. Topics include:

    • Journal Club, Topical Presentations, Book Club, Film Discussion, Poetry Group, Game Night, and more!

    • We welcome hosts: if YOU have a passion topic you would like integrate into a program, email Jaena!

    • Follow the listserv and monthly newsletter for these events.

Join Our Working Groups:

Indicate your interest in joining one of our working groups at membershipcoordinator@climatepsychiatry.org

Member engagement working group

This working group provides stewardship for the day-to-day functioning of the CPA and leads initiatives to ensure effective connection with members.

• Deals with internal operations, such as considering and crafting organizational policy changes to be considered by the steering committee. 

• Works to interface with new members who desire engagement
  

Outreach & advocacy working group

Consistent with our growing focus on activism, the O&A group is actively working to create a better and affect change.

In a joint effort of the CPA and CPA- NA, a group of interested mental health professionals at various levels in their careers formed the “Outreach and Advocacy Committee.” - The committee is dedicated to expanding the role of MHPs on the climate crisis by initiating ways to affect change. by sharing our knowledge and unique skills We are working in several key domains: in government, with social interest groups, and by providing online resources.

Our current activities include:

• Development of a template calling for state government to address extreme weather events, the resulting emotional toll (particularly on young people) and the mental health services that will be needed now and in the future. A bill supporting our efforts will soon be dropped in MA; the mobilization is in early phases in other states.

• A call for state cabinet level climate solutions offices. Representatives from the O/A will be briefing the new cabinet level climate chief in MA.

• Establishment of a climate hotline: we are working within an existing structure “211.com” to provide help responding to climate emergencies and to build resilience with resources on ways to take action.

• Providing an online resource: the Ecopsychepedia (EPP) is a newly launched resource for the public which addresses “all things” climate and mental health. Check it out! (ask us how you can contribute your work or help in other ways)

Consider Joining the growing group of climate activists in O/A- because we know we are stronger, louder and smarter together! First and third Mondays 8 ET. Contact Shana Rose (shanaro931@gmail.com) to be added to our email list.
 

Voice and communication working group

The “voice” group focuses on using social media as a way to engage and communicate with not only CPA members but with the public as a whole.

We are always looking for new and effective communication strategies. We welcome your ideas!
 
 

Education and curriculum working group

The education group is dedicated to developing materials to inform psychiatrists, psychiatry trainees, and the general public about the effects of climate on mental health. Our current efforts include:

• Developing a video documenting the psychological impacts of climate change on children and adolescents

• Building public health campaigns with state organizations to inform the general public on climate change impacts and to generate community resilience, change.

• Collaboration with other organizations while developing climate change and mental health general curricula for academic departments.

• Considering the dissemination of climate change and mental health materials, lectures to those post-training

• Submissions to various educational projects, such as Ecopsychepedia, trade journal articles, Psychiatric News, Psychiatry Times, and more!

Youth (children and adolescents) working group

Children and adolescents are particularly vulnerable to the mental health consequences of climate change. Traumatic stressors have outsized impact when experienced in childhood, and youth are more likely than adults to experience “eco-anxiety” and other forms of psychological distress related to the unfolding catastrophe. Youth activists have also demonstrated that they are uniquely audacious and effective in the face of political inertia. When equipped with skills for resilience, young people have unmatched power to bend the arc of the climate crisis.

The CPA Youth Working Group, formally launching in the spring of 2023, will address the particular needs (and potential) of young people through the development and dissemination of resources for resilience and well-being, through tools for parents and educators, through coordination of research efforts, and through advocacy.