Initiatives

Eco-anxiety, climate distress, and related mental health impacts of climate change: tools and frameworks for clinicians 

We offer educational workshops that provide an introduction to eco-anxiety, climate distress, and related mental health impacts of climate change for physicians and clinicians. The workshop covers the latest theory and practice in climate-aware therapy and will foreground resilience building practices that are applicable to vulnerable groups (i.e. youth/students, members of historically marginalized groups, people with pre-existing mental illness, climate and environmental professionals/activists). Participants gain knowledge of key climate psychology terms and concepts, new tools and frameworks for clinical practice, and an understanding of win-win solutions in the emerging field of climate-mental health that demand inner (personal) and outer (community, organizational, planetary) action.  

Youth Hubs Climate Distress Intervention

We are proud to have received funding to embark on a multi-year research project in which we will co-design and test a climate distress intervention with youth who we partner with via international networks of integrated youth services (youth wellness hubs) and a global climate advocacy group. More details are forthcoming.

Climate Conversations

With support from a Stanford CIGH seed grant and international partners, in 2022-23, we co-created and piloted a community-minded intervention for psychosocially supportive conversations about the climate crisis and its impacts on mental health with concerned youth and elders in Lagos, Nigeria; London, UK; and New Orleans, Louisiana. Read more about the project and listen back to highlights from the conversations at the Climate Conversations Portal.  Following the intervention, a majority of participants wanted to learn more about climate change, how it impacts mental health, and how it threatens to worsen health inequities they already face in their community to better defend against these burdens. Several participants reported that the conversations changed the way they think about the causes and outcomes of the extreme weather they experience in New Orleans, the importance of taking climate action, and wanted to host their own climate conversations with others.

We are now working with community facilitators in New Orleans to expand the scope of this project in Louisiana, by integrating a community organizing model that will engage more facilitators and participants across the state, and conducting a robust evaluation component to understand its impact on climate distress, mental health and wellbeing, and social cohesion/capital.

Connecting Climate Minds:

In partnership with the Climate Mental Health Network, CIRCLE’s Dr. Britt Wray worked with a team of international researchers, led by Climate Cares, Imperial College London, to create a global research and action agenda for the emerging field of climate mental health. This Wellcome Trust funded project catalyzed a global community of researchers and practitioners, engaged with lived experience experts, and ran regional dialogues worldwide. 

Identifying research and action priorities for tackling the mental health challenges presented by climate change. Check out the outputs of Connecting Climate Minds, including lived experience testimonies, research and action agendas from all 7 regions of the world, the global synthesis agenda, and case studies at the Connecting Climate Minds Hub. Dr. Wray served on the Lived Experience Working Group and Advisory Committee for the combined region of North America and Europe.