COPE is designed for students in Grades 5 to 7. It utilizes the principles of mindfulness to help students achieve better mental wellness and cope with issues like anxiety, overthinking, stress, sleep loss, and social media use – all things that recent research tells us can contribute to mental health issues and suicidal ideation.

COPE is taught in four, 60-minute sessions in Vancouver Island schools:

Session 1 – Communication: Talking with a safe adult about our struggles or the things we worry about helps us COPE. What does it mean to COPE? Becoming aware of how we speak to ourselves and the ways we think about ourselves can teach us how to be our own best friend. How to communicate our feelings through art, poetry, journalling, culture. What it means to have someone listen. What a safe adult is. What it would look like if they called, chatted with, or texted Crisis Services.

Session 2 – Options: What are options? What does it mean to have options? Exploring internal and external options. Mindfulness, self-care, self-compassion. A guided exercise facilitates creating personal coping plans.

Session 3 – Perspective: Tools for handling overthinking, worry, and anxiety. Helping students learn how to put things back into perspective for themselves and see the gifts in difficult times. Helping learners understand their own strength and resilience.

Session 4 – Enjoy Life: Session about balance and finding a sense of calm or peacefulness even when one is going through a hard time. Creating intentional happiness. Students will identify things that contribute to their personal happiness and will each create their own “happiness medicine wheel.”

COPE is also available online!

COPE has been re-created in an online format. This gives families and schools across Vancouver Island access to life-affirming activities and information in support of personal resilience and mental health.

Parents, caregivers, and teachers are encouraged to participate in the program alongside young learners in order to generate further conversation. To more easily facilitate this, the Crisis Society has also created an activity booklet entitled Action Plans for Coping (After-COPE Activity Guide), that students will be encouraged to work on in between sessions and after the program’s conclusion. A COPE Discussion Guide is also available for educators and parents.

The Crisis Society would like to thank The Province of British Columbia, Intraworks I.T. Management in Nanaimo, Odd Fellows Columbia Lodge No. 2 in Victoria, Cowichan Valley Ride for Suicide Awareness, CIBC Children’s Foundation, and Matthew Wells – Clinically Creative, as well as individual donors, for making this possible.

 

We acknowledge the financial support
of the Province of British Columbia for Community Education programming

Please also see list of private donors.

COPE is facilitated by Lyndsay Wells. For further information about our in-class or our online version of COPE, call 250-753-2495, toll free at 1-877-753-2495, or email info@vicrisis.ca

 

© Vancouver Island Crisis Society. All rights reserved. No commercial reproduction, distribution or transmission of any part or parts of this workshop or any information contained therein by any means whatsoever is permitted without the prior written permission of Vancouver Island Crisis Society