The Creative Coping Toolkit (CCT) is an online film-based learning platform built around iNDIEFLIX’s original mental health film collection and designed to support social-emotional well-being, as well as the development of life skills like empathy and thoughtfulness.

Depending on the licensing agreement your school has with us, you may have access to the CCT for one (1) to four (4) film programs in our mental health collection. 

This program was created with communities and students in mind and can be used in a variety of ways both in the classroom as well as in informal educational settings like library events, family workshops, after-school programs, community events, or professional development sessions. 

Through the CCT, you can explore topics addressed in our film(s) with your class through guided discussion, self-reflection prompts, and social-emotional learning (SEL) activities. Students can reflect on what they have seen and think about connections to their own lives. Also, they will learn more about the experiences of others, including their peers and classmates. 

You can use the CCT to:

• Facilitate engaged learning and classroom discussions around mental health to promote life skill development, social-emotional learning, and student well-being.
• Guide a film-based lesson related to mental health, adding an interactive activity for an extended classroom lesson.
• Assign students immersive activities for bell work or homework to deepen understanding and reflection. 

• The activities and discussion guides in the toolkit are designed to be flexible and can be adjusted according to your curriculum, available time, and unique student experiences.
• Reference our Sample Lesson Guide (via: Welcome Guide) for inspiration on how to integrate multiple tools in the CCT together within a classroom session. 
• Student activities can be assigned as standalone exercises or integrated into a longer lesson plan. They can be printed for students to hand write answers or downloaded to save their reflections digitally; each exercise can also be accessed, printed or saved individually.
• As a guide, the activities can be completed in 5 to 20 minutes, depending on how much time you allow participants to reflect. They make a great warm-up exercise or bell work, or can be assigned as extended learning as homework.
• If you assign activities for homework, we recommend that you suggest your students involve their family members - this way they can become “SEL Champions” at home! 
• The chapter-by-chapter discussion guides are designed to facilitate longer and more in-depth reflection and learning for group-focused sessions - great for the classroom setting.
• It is recommended that at least 15 to 20 minutes are allocated for viewing a chapter video clip and using the included guide for student self-reflection and then group discussion. We encourage allocating more time to longer chapters to provide more reflection!

The Upstanders explores cyber-bullying, showing the perspectives of those who bully, the effects on their targets and families, and the brain science behind it all. The film highlights new laws and programs that are already working to reduce bullying in schools and shows us how we can learn to make a difference together to create systemic change. 

Featuring interviews with experts, adults, and kids, the film teaches students how to be upstanders, practice mindfulness, and be more resilient. Bullying prevention starts with individual behavior, so learning self-care and kindness will ultimately teach us how to be empathetic and stand up for others.

By teaching The Upstanders in the classroom, you will enable students to:

• Understand the importance of being an upstander, identify examples of bystanding, and apply active strategies to become an upstander.
• Understand and apply strategies to promote resilience and wellbeing – both for themselves and others – and demonstrate the connections between affirmations, comfort strategies, and feelings of well-being.
• Become familiar with techniques of mindfulness for mental health and resilience, including the ability to apply strategies to reduce anxieties by focusing on the present.
• Explore the importance of communication and its relationship to mental health, how to improve understanding of emotions and moods, and how to reach out and share their feelings with others.
• Explain how dopamine, oxytocin, serotonin, and endorphins affect our emotions and reactions to others, and what they can do to replenish these natural mood enhancers.

Merve Lapus Vice President, Education Outreach & Engagement, Common Sense Media. Merve is responsible for the overall outreach strategy and national partnerships for Common Sense Education and oversees a team that works directly with leadership to impact communities using technology for learning and life. Collaborating with school networks, state-level organizations, community leaders, and national partners, Merve is committed to fostering a whole-community approach to digital well-being, and establishing supportive learning spaces for all children and families to thrive in a world with media and technology.

James R. Doty, MD, is a clinical professor in the Department of Neurosurgery at Stanford University School of Medicine. He is also the founder and director of the Center for Compassion and Altruism Research and Education at Stanford University of which His Holiness the Dalai Lama is the founding benefactor. He works with scientists from a number of disciplines examining the neural bases for compassion and altruism.

Dr. Scott Ross, PhD, BCBA, is an Assistant Professor at CSU-MB, teaching classes in Special Education, General Education, and School Psychology. Dr. Ross has a Masters in SPED and a PhD in School Psychology, and has over a decade worth of experience across four states developing evidence-based strategies in Positive Behavioral Interventions and Supports (PBIS), Multi-Tiered System of Support (MTSS), and Implementation Science.

Radha Agrawal is the co-Founder, CEO and Chief Community Architect of Daybreaker, the early morning dance and wellness move-ment that currently holds events in 25 cities and over a dozen college campuses around the world with a community of almost half a million people. She is a successful entrepreneur (Co-Founder THINX, LiveItUp), author, globe trotting speaker, DJ, inventor, and investor.

Jesse Israel is a social entrepreneur, meditation leader and former record label executive known for founding the mass meditation movement The Big Quiet. Jesse has signed multi-platinum bands like MGMT, has led some of the largest meditations in the world, teaches meditation to next-generation leaders and speaks at Fortune 500s and colleges. At the start of 2020, Jesse was invited to go on tour with Oprah Winfrey and WW to speak at and lead mass meditations at sold-out arenas throughout the US. Jesse’s work has been featured in the New York Times, Vice, Vogue, Fast Company, GQ and the Wall Street Journal.

Dr. Nicholas Brody is 

The Molak Family: Founders of David’s Legacy Foundation

David Bartlett Molak, age 16, passed away on Monday, January 4, 2016, in his hometown of San Antonio, Texas. Within a couple of days of losing David, his loving brothers wrote a Facebook post sharing their feelings about David’s untimely death and calling on others in the community to join together to stop bullying. The post rapidly spread across the country, and it became their dream that David’s legacy would help heal this country. Those words have inspired many, and they remain the vision that guides the work of David’s Legacy Foundation, a non-profit organization whose mission is to eliminate cyber and other bullying, of children and teens, through education, legislation, and legal action.