In this episode, we talk to Ross Szabo on the importance of educating young people about mental health. We learn about how mental health has been stigmatized as a phrase and a concept at large, as well as the approaches to take when talking about mental health with children and young adults.
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Ross Szabo is a social innovator who pioneered the youth mental health movement. He is the Wellness Director and founding faculty member at Geffen Academy at UCLA, where he has created a program for students to learn about mental health once a week throughout their education from grade 6-12. Ross is also an award winning speaker, author and the CEO of Human Power Project, a company that designs mental health curriculum.
Social Media Handle: @rossszabo
Publications: A Kids Book About Anxiety, Behind Happy Faces; Taking Charge of Your Mental Health
Memorable Moments:
2:50 We're really kind of in just the beginning stages of mental health literacy. And what we're trying to do is tie that past history of physical literacy and mental literacy as a way to actually normalize conversations around mental health.
4:26 We need to start actually teaching that there are different categories for mental health challenges. One would be everyday challenges: stress, lack of sleep, body image issues, things like that. Those are things everyone experiences. Another category would be environmental factors. The next category would be significant events, so experiences with loss change, and rejection, and how that affects your lives. This is really critical in terms of normalizing mental health. Because most people are confusing these issues. But those aren't the same things. This is just one tool. Let's actually separate what you're experiencing so that you have a better vocabulary for it.
6:20 - One of the most important things there is teaching kinds of sensitivity around what is a mental health disorder and what isn't.
6:25 - The conversations that are getting normalized now aren't actually beneficial. They're dismissive of people's experiences.
8:06 - Mental health literacy and mental health education are different from social-emotional learning.
8:36 - Mental health literacy is important because the definition of mental health isn't having a problem. It's how you address challenges in your life.
8:56 - Mental health should be taught the same way as physical health. What schools are mainly afraid of is becoming therapeutic centers. But there is a way to take a public health approach to mental health.
12:12 In the professional setting, put up boundaries and only share things you’ve processed. Give yourself the outlet so that you're not stuck to take things back or wish you didn't share some.
13:27 - One of the most important things you can do as a parent is to model the behavior you want to see in your kids. The largest form of education will always be through example. It'll never be words.
16:40 - It's natural for kids to have different things they like and have those things shift throughout adolescence. There's nothing wrong with that. But when it gets deeper than that, when you see that they're not able to do the things they used to do for a longer duration of time, that's when it's time to call someone in.
18:05 - As you go through the early decades of your life, you spend so much time building and trying to find what works for you that it takes a while to get to a place where you can be more present and be in a place where you're connecting.
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This podcast is hosted by Allison Walsh and Dr. Angela Phillips. It is produced by Allison Walsh, Savannah Eckstrom, and Nicole LaNeve. If you’re interested in being a guest on this podcast, please visit www.therecoveryvillage.com/dearmindyoumatter.
Note: We use AI transcription so there may be some inaccuracies
Allison: 00:02
Hello and welcome to the dear mind, do you matter podcast? My name is Allison Walsh. I'm a longtime mental health advocate and vice president at Advanced Recovery Systems. On each episode I will be joined by my colleague and clinical expert, Dr. Angela Phillips. This show along with our mental health and wellness app, Nobu are just some of the ways we're working to provide you with actionable tips and tools to take really good care of yourself each and every day. So sit back, relax and grab your favorite note taking device, it's time to fill your mind with things that matter.
Angela: 00:36
Welcome to this week's conversation about Ross Zabo. Ross is a social innovator who pioneered the Youth Mental Health Movement. He is the wellness director and founding faculty member at Geffen Academy at UCLA where he has created a program for students to learn about mental health once a week throughout their education from grades six to 12. Ross is also an award winning speaker, author and the CEO of human power project, a company that designs mental health curriculum. Welcome Ross to our conversation this week on dear mind you matter. Ross,
Allison: 01:07
we are so excited that you are spending some time with us today. Would you mind introducing yourself to our audience.
Ross Szabo 01:13
Thanks so much for having me. My name is Ronson Zevo. I'm the wellness director at Geffen Academy at UCLA, which is a school for students in grades six through 12. I designed a course where students learn about their mental health once a week, every single week from grade six through grade 12. It's a graduation requirement. Before coming to Geffen Academy, I ran the National Mental Health Awareness Campaign for eight years where we develop the first Youth Mental Health speakers around the country. And I have a company called human power project that creates mental health curriculum for people of all ages. I've also written two books, one is called behind happy faces. The other one is a kid's book about anxiety. And I speak around the country as well.
Angela: 01:50
Awesome, Ross, I'm so excited. I'm a new mom, I don't know if you knew that. But this is a really great topic that I'm really excited to talk to you about. And also because I listen, I talk so much about mental health literacy. And you're the perfect person to segue into all the work you've done there. And I'm so excited about this. But I want you to kind of set the stage for us in terms of why is this even important? We know this is a huge passion of yours, obviously. So let us know a little bit more about that.
Ross Szabo 02:15
Yeah, I think in all the meetings I've had recently with political leaders, mental health advocates, everything else, the one thing that people are really focusing in on is mental health literacy being the least controversial thing to teach in schools. If you think about physical health literacy, it's that people can name their body parts, they can identify when they're sick. And even if they don't go to a doctor, you at least Google like my symptoms and see if you're sick, right. So decades of physical health literacy. Research has shown us that when people can be familiar with their bodies, they seek help sooner, the conversations are normalized, and things move forward. And so we're kind of on really just the beginning stages of mental health literacy. And what we're trying to do is tie that past history of physical literacy and mental literacy as a way to actually normalize conversations around mental health. So just from a research based plays, it's really exciting to see where this could go. Obviously, we're just at the tip of the iceberg here and implementing it. But I think it's one of the key ways to normalize conversations about mental health.
Allison: 03:17
And I love that you're starting at an early age to write like with all the work that you're doing with grades six through 12. But I think this is even something that as adults, we're still normalizing the conversation around mental health, mental health literacy is incredibly important, but wanted to kind of ask you they are not subject area like how can we be more mindful when it comes to our own language about mental health? And obviously, the more we talk about it, the more normal it becomes. But I still see a lot of adults that are recognizing like, Yeah, I'm not feeling the same as I used to, or I've noticed something's not quite right. But they don't even know how to articulate that. Yeah. So can we pause and play here for a minute? Yeah, no,
Ross Szabo 03:57
there are tools that are important, right? Everyone knows the difference between physical health challenges. Everyone knows the difference between a sprained ankle and a broken leg. They know the difference between having a cold versus having the flu, unless of course, you're male, because when I have a cold, it's really hard for me, and I need a lot of support and love and hugs. And I don't know, it could be worse than a cold, I won't know until I get the attention I need. But people know the difference between cancer and diabetes as well. So you have different categories for physical health challenges, we need to start actually teaching that there are different categories for mental health challenges. One would be everyday challenges, stress, lack of sleep, body image issues, things like that. Those are things everyone experiences. Another category would be environmental factors. So the home you grew up in the school you went to the way you raised, that actually affects your mental health, especially as an adult, especially if you haven't dealt with it. I always joke with people that sometimes being an adult is just undoing adolescence, or reliving adolescence. Depending on how self aware you are. The next category would be significant events, so experiences with loss change and rejection, how that infects your lives. So divorce, moving big changes, things like that, how that impacts you, then you'd have mental health disorders, and then you'd have developmental disabilities. I think this is really critical in terms of normalizing mental health. Because most people are confusing these issues. They experience stress, and they start telling people, they have an anxiety disorder, they go through a divorce, they start telling everyone they have clinical depression. But those aren't the same things. This is just one tool, but let's actually separate what you're experiencing so that you have a better vocabulary for it.
Angela: 05:30
Definitely, that's so important. And just the way we talk about symptoms, or, for example, the weather, so bipolar, or just the phrases that we use, that have become so ingrained in our society, or just our environment, right, our culture, we kind of throw terms around, and we don't realize how that might be impacting others, and then the greater mental health community, even if we have such a strong connection to it. I have conversations with people like this all the time. Why does that matter? And what does that mean? How does that impact someone? Or how does it impact the greater mental health community and what we're trying to do to normalize this? It doesn't help? How are you having those conversations with bigger stakeholders when you talk about taking more of this public health approach? And how can we help advocate for that sort of transition? What does that look like?
Ross Szabo 06:16
Yeah, one of the most important things there is teaching kinds of sensitivity around what is a mental health disorder and what isn't. The conversations that are getting normalized now aren't actually beneficial. They're dismissive of people's experiences. So when someone feels some level of nervousness, or butterflies in their stomach, and they say that anxiety disorder, they're actually dismissing the person experience with an anxiety disorder, you can tell someone who's nervous to calm down, when someone has an anxiety disorder, the opposite is actually being able to see reality. It's the same thing with feeling depressed versus having depression, when someone feels depressed or upset or sad. The opposite of that is feeling happy. When someone has clinical depression. The opposite of that is vitality. It's actually having energy together, or do things you would typically do. And so much of what you're speaking about, like when we're insensitive about the weather, when we're insensitive about other things, were normalizing mental health in the wrong way. And what's interesting about this is that is happening in older generations a lot. Whereas younger generations, like the generation that I have in my school, is far more well versed in mental health than adults. And is okay with having these conversations more so than any other generation before though.
Allison: 07:27
It's so important. Because as we said, already, you can teach them you're you're equipping them with the right vocabulary to be able to articulate it, you're giving them the tools they need. So how can we advocate for this approach in our schools at large, you're doing amazing work with what you're doing. But this needs to be something that widespread So what advice do you have if people are listening to this going? Oh, my gosh, I wish that we had this experience where I am, what would you advise on that side of things?
Ross Szabo 07:54
So it's a really important question. And one of the things that people can do is like a lot of schools are doing social emotional learning. A lot of schools are already trying to teach students emotional intelligence, but mental health literacy and mental health education is different from social emotional learning, social emotional learning is it's okay to have feelings. These are the feelings name, the feelings, identify the emotion, stuff like that. Mental health literacy comes in around kind of grades four through six, where after telling a kid they can talk about their feelings for a long time, once they try it, they see that there are consequences. At a certain age, you see that there are consequences. Your friends could make fun of you, you could have rumors about you, people could react a certain way. And mental health literacy is important because the definition of mental health isn't having a problem. It's how you address challenges in your life. So bringing in that definition, and treating mental health the same way we teach Physical health is a critical part of adolescent development. So if you're watching this, and you're in a school, and you're like, hey, I really want to find a way to do this. It's about advocating that mental health should be taught the same way as physical health. what schools are mainly afraid of is becoming therapeutic centers. But there is a way to take a public health approach to mental health. There's a way to treat it like physical health and physical health to teach about the body name, body parts, do all these other things with mental health. It's taking a similar approach where you're talking about the topic from solely an identification place and not a therapeutic place. Yeah,
Angela: 09:21
it's so important to have those definitions expanded more, because I think like you said, when we talk about sort of health as an umbrella, and then we have physical health and mental health, mental health, just as it's not what we've created, which is that disorder, categorical aspect of it, which is part of it right, but what becomes frustrating I think, for those who are trying to advocate for it is that's such a stigmatizing word or series of words that people don't want to get into. And like you said, it's that therapeutic mindset that something's wrong with me if we're talking about mental health or something's wrong with our kids, if we feel like we need to teach them but that's not the case at all. It's the opposite, right? We all have mental health, we need to take care of ourselves. And so that really makes me think About to Ross is when we talk about our personal experiences, and we really try to pull them into a conversation. So I think a lot of adults listening to this would really relate. So if I'm having a conversation with someone, and they're really opening up, and they're sharing something with me, and I might feel like my experience might be helpful for them, what sorts of advice would you have for someone so that we're really creating some sort of solid boundary system around that? Or really just if you're not sure what's appropriate to share or not to share? What advice would you have for folks who are maybe in that position, or might want to share and just aren't quite sure what the next step would be in that scenario?
Ross Szabo 10:37
Yeah, I think there's different contexts for this in a professional setting, and you want to talk about your mental health, it's really important to only show things that you've processed that you can own that you can share out loud with confidence. And that's a space where in normalizing mental health, you can say, Yeah, I went through this, or I've had experience with anxiety, depression, whatever it is, I had a family member who went through something stuff like that that's appropriate in the workplace, because you don't want to process your emotions in your workplace. If you need time away from the workplace, or from a professional setting, simply say, like, hey, my family's having an issue, or you know, I have a personal issue and what I need to do, so that's really important, because what started happening in workplaces is people are kind of oversharing, or being vulnerable too quickly, and then not being able to take it back. In settings that aren't a workplace or a professional setting, I think the most important thing to do is really take your time with what you're trying to process or what you're trying to go through, have some kind of structure for it, and know that it is a process. Anytime we do something for the first time, it takes a while to get more comfortable with it. So the first time you explain or explore emotions with a partner, or with someone you're close to, or a family member, you're gonna get that nervousness, you're gonna have the feelings of anxiety and other issues because you're sharing it for the first time. The longer you do it, the better you're going to get at it. But you do have to start somewhere in an intimate, more vulnerable place, start somewhere, have a way to talk about your feelings have a way to begin. And then in the professional setting, like I said, put up boundaries only share things you process and give yourself the outlet so that you're not stuck to take things back or wish you didn't share some
Allison: 12:20
great advice, great advice. And I'm sure that there are a lot of parents that are listening. I know Angela mentioned, being a new mom, when we first started, I've got three kids, this is such an important conversation that really should start in the home. We hope that everybody's having these conversations, we also understand that these are hard conversations to have, especially for those outside of this world. Like we live in this world, we're very comfortable. But even I've noticed is I have a 10 year old right? And she's very hard on herself. And we're having these conversations now. What are you feeling? Let's talk about that. But how do you have these conversations at home? How do you start talking to kids about this? And what are some suggestions or maybe some tips that you can offer those that are listening right now?
Ross Szabo 13:03
Let's another level this recovered? How to talk to your peers? How do you talk to kids, I think one of the most important things with kids is actually being honest. Especially when kids are younger, they can handle a lot. In the book that I wrote a kid's book about anxiety, we talk about the difference between feeling nervous and having an anxiety disorder so that they can start seeing there's a difference and seeing words around it. And so one of the most important things you can do as a parent is model, the behavior you want to see in your kids. And the largest form of education will always be example, it'll never be worse, can always be example. So one way to normalize conversations about mental health in your home, is to actually have them with each other in front of the kids and with the kids. And obviously, you're gonna have moments where the kids kind of grow in and they're like this, again, you don't need to hear this, we don't need to talk about it. But that's only happening when these conversations are infrequent, the more frequent you can make them. And the more activities you can tie in even as a family if you're like, hey, we're going to do a hike or a walk, because it helps us. It helps normalize coping, things like that. That's one step. The second step is if you want to talk to kids, a lot of times the best thing to do is make them the expert. So instead of sitting down with your kid and saying like, Hey, I don't ever want you to be or I don't ever want you to do this thing or lecturing them, ask them what they know about it. Kids are smart, they're savvy, they have a lot more experience than you may know. So one thing to do is sit down and be like, Hey, I was reading this thing about whatever the topic is, whenever you're having trying to have a conversation about you know anything about it. And a lot of times they will, and they'll say yeah, this is what I've heard, this is what I know. And then you can ask, do you see your friends dealing with this at all? A lot of times kids open up because it's about something other than them. And then you can ask, Hey, is this something that is affecting you or you're dealing with so if you want to talk about stress, whatever it is, you start from a place of what do you know you move to what do you see? And then you go into what are you experiencing?
Angela: 14:59
Oh, I love That's just an easy thing to remember that we can pop into our thought box and rattle through if we're just not quite sure what to do or where to go. And like you said, Really, one of the things I learned in just becoming a therapist is obviously, when you're working with someone, whether it's a client, whether you're talking to a family member, obviously, they're the expert on themselves, right? And so like you said, kids are so much smarter than we are. And they're learning things at such a rapid pace now and have so much access to so many more resources in different ways than a lot of us parents did. So it just seems like such a no brainer. But I think we need to hear that so that we can bring them into the conversation, like you said, instead of have conversations around them, which I think a lot of people forget about or forget to do as adults and parents. Isn't that super helpful. One of the other things I was thinking about too, that maybe you can shed a little bit more light on is when we're pivoting the conversation, or we see that, you know, maybe this isn't going the direction that we had hoped, or we're maybe not getting as much out of our kids as we had hoped to get or just aren't feeling that connection. What do you advise that people look for when maybe it's best to take a next step and reach out for more support? Maybe it's a therapist, maybe it's bringing another trusted family member? What do you typically tell folks to do when they're maybe in that position of needing more?
Ross Szabo 16:17
Yeah, so I think one of the earliest and first things to notice is when someone isn't doing what they typically do. So if they used to hang out with their friends, and they're not doing it anymore, if they used to enjoy a certain activity or sport, and they don't anymore, they really cared about something, and they don't care about it anymore. These are the first signs of like, Hey, what's going on, let me check in, let me see what is going on. It's natural for kids to have different things they like and have those things shift throughout adolescence. And that might just be the case, they might just be like, Hey, I thought I really liked this. I'm kind of over it. Now. It's not something I like to do anymore. And that's fine. There's nothing wrong with that. But when it gets deeper than that, when you see that they're not able to do the things they used to do for a longer duration of time. That's when it's time to call someone in, or obviously normal for kids that have lash out, do things like that. But when you see that it's not controllable, when you see that they can't come down, when you see that there's something deeper, that's when it is a good time to bring somebody else in and get another opinion,
Allison: 17:18
you have given us so many valuable words of wisdom. I'm just blown away at all the great things that you've done to Ross and just changing the world and making a massive impact. And I just think it's so cool. And I'm so glad we're connected now. And I would love for everybody to be able to connect with you too. And we'll get to that in a second. But we love to ask every guest that comes on our show, at this point in your life. What matters most to you right now.
Ross Szabo 17:44
Man, that's a great question. What matters most right now is finding time to recharge and to connect. I went through so much trauma as a kid, and was diagnosed with bipolar disorder when I was 16. And I tell people all the time, that it's a process of learning how to take care of our mental health and how to take care of myself all the time. And unfortunately, as you go through the the early decades of your life, you spend so much time building, and so much time trying to find what works for you that it takes a while to get to a place where you can be more present, and to be in a place where you're connecting. And so that's what's most important to me is being connected and present in everything
Angela: 18:25
I'm doing. That's awesome. Well, we appreciate you being connected and present here with us today. And we'd love to just have you share with our listeners where they can find you follow you and just get more of Ross.
Ross Szabo 18:38
Yeah, so my website's just raw sibo.com And then on Instagram, it is Ross llevo. And then I'm just starting this new Tik Tok account where it's going to be mental dot health dot teacher. And I'm going to start sharing everything I do in the classroom and everything I do at my school on tick tock so that people can learn from it. Maybe you will be the first follower because I literally just started it yesterday.
Allison: 19:04
Love that. Well, thank you so much for being here. We're really grateful and good luck with your tick tock adventure. That'll be fun to follow.
Angela: 19:12
Thank you, Ross.
Ross Szabo 19:13
Thank you