The Hope Matrix

This week’s special guest on the Hope Matrix is Tarun Galagali. Tarun is a Mental Health Advocate and the Director of Business Strategy & Operations at Talkspace. He is currently heading the Talkspace and Hopeful Cities initiative in Reno, which is providing free, unlimited messaging therapy to all Reno residents.

Talkspace was founded eight years ago with the goal to provide more people with convenient access to licensed therapists around the clock. Talkspace works with a user’s schedule (and social distancing procedures) by providing users with unlimited access to therapists via text message, audio message, and online text-based chat room. The Talkspace App also provides additional therapy, mental health, and wellness resources for users. 

In this week’s episode, Tarun and Kathryn discuss the resources offered at Talkspace, and analyze the negative reputation sometimes associated with therapy. Tarun and Kathryn open up about their own mental health journeys, and reveal the benefits that you can gain from having a therapist at your disposal.  

For more information about Talkspace and the Hopeful Cities campaign, visit https://www.talkspace.com/reno and https://hopefulcities.org/. If you are an employer or city official interested in providing Talkspace services for your employees or residents, visit https://www.talkspace.com/reno or contact Tarun at [email protected]. 

This week’s special guest on the Hope Matrix is Lian Zeitz, Co-Founder and Global Director of Love and Compassion for Youth RISE, a company mobilizing youth to be engaged in full spectrum harm reduction and drug policy reform to promote health and human rights. Lian has also worked as the Director of Youth Engagement and Advocacy for Cities RISE. 

In this week’s episode, Kathryn and Lian explore the complex relationship between hope and spirituality, and examine the importance of spirituality in adolescent mental health. Lian shares his own journey as a “mental health groupie,” and explains how his experiences within the system sparked a lifelong passion for global mental health advocacy. 

To learn more about Lian’s work, visit Youth RISE and Cities RISE.

This week’s special guest on the Hope Matrix is Neli Vazquez Rowland. Neli is the Co-Founder and President of A Safe Haven (ASH), an award-winning vertically integrated social and economic development model that rebuilds the lives of individuals impacted by poverty, substance abuse, prison reentry, and homelessness. The ASH model uses a holistic, integrated, and individualized multi-disciplinary approach to offer addiction treatment, education, healthcare, job training/placement, and supportive and affordable housing development. ASH has served over 10,000 people since 1994, and is currently serving over 5,000 individuals each year.

In this week’s episode, Kathryn and Neli discuss the effect of the pandemic-related lockdowns and layoffs on American homelessness. They examine the helplessness and despair (the two ingredients of hopelessness) that many Americans experience when facing the homelessness issue, and review the hope tools, such as Stress Skills, that we can use to return to a hopeful, critical-thinking mindset.   Neli also presents inspired actions that we can take to help address the root cause of homelessness. 

To learn more about Neli’s work, visit https://www.asafehaven.org/ and http://nelivr.com/.

This week’s special guest on the Hope Matrix is Dr. Raouf Gharbo, DO. Dr. Gharbo is a Physical Medicine & Rehabilitation Specialist, and HRV Subject Matter Expert for pragmatic solutions. He has over 20 years of experience using hope methodologies to address chronic pain. 

In this week’s episode, Kathryn and Dr. Gharbo discuss the benefit of using hope skills to help foster resilience against the pain, hopelessness, and fatigue associated with chronic pain. Dr. Gharbo shares how Stress Skills, such as deep breathing and mindfulness, can help people with chronic pain release the energy associated with their worries about the future and focus on maintaining a trusting and hopeful mindset. He also addresses how Happy Habits, such as purpose and passion, can positively impact long term health, happiness, and physical success. 

To learn more about Dr. Gharbo’s research, you can visit his ANShealth Biography, or read his published studies here: Autonomic Rehabilitation: Adapting to Change, Untangling Chronic Pain and Hyperarousal with Heart Rate Variability: A Case Report, and HRV Biofeedback in Pain Patients (HRVB-PP).

This week’s special guest on the Hope Matrix is Taylor Steed. Taylor is the author of the Hopeful Minds Overview and Hopeful Minds Deep Dive Educator Guides, as well as many of the Hopeful Minds and iFred resources for parents, educators, and children.

In this week’s episode, Taylor and Kathryn discuss the importance of hope in the classroom, and how Hopeful Minds is striving to make hope “cool” for kids. They reflect on their favorite aspects of the new curriculums, and reveal how current events have inspired them to make the curriculums classroom or remote-learning adaptive.  

For more information about the Hopeful Minds curriculums or to download them for free, visit www.hopefulminds.org. 

This week’s special guest on the Hope Matrix is Sandy Marshall. Sandy is the founder, CEO, and visionary of Project Scientist, a national nonprofit that turns girls age 4 to 12 onto science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM). She is passionate about igniting girls’ confidence that a STEM career is obtainable for any girl. 

In the nine years since it was created, Project Scientist has served more than 10,000 girls. More than half have attended the Project Scientist summer STEM camps on scholarship, representing low-income households near college campuses. Since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, Project Scientist has also offered virtual STEM camps nationwide. 

In this week’s episode, Sandy and Kathryn discuss how to use hope tools to inspire young girls to aspire to careers in STEM. From the importance of role models and support networks, to understanding how to handle failure, to using negative emotions to energize positive feelings and inspired actions, Kathryn and Sandy chat about the complex obstacles that young women in STEM face from an early age, and identify how a hopeful mindset can help women overcome them. 

For more information about Project Scientist or to donate to the Project Scientist scholarship fund, visit https://projectscientist.org. For more resources for young girls interested in STEM careers, visit https://pbskids.org/scigirls/ or https://www.youtube.com/user/ProjectScientist/featured.  

This week’s special guest on the Hope Matrix is Jamie Kelly, Strategic Advisor and Vice President Omnichannel for Isomr Group. Jamie is a mom of two brilliant, dyslexic children (Landon and Camryn), and a founder of Support Dyslexia. In addition to her successful career in retail merchandising, product content development, and digital shelf management, she has dedicated her life to raising awareness about dyslexia, and helping parents, educators, and children connect with dyslexia resources.

In this week’s episode, Jamie and Kathryn discuss the challenges that children with dyslexia face, and how these hardships can lead to helplessness and despair. Jamie provides valuable insight into the creative outlets that students with dyslexia can use to remain hopeful, and the skills that children and parents can focus on to help them achieve their dreams.  

For more information on resources for children with dyslexia, visit www.supportdyslexia.org, www.madebydyslexia.org, www.childmindinstitute.org, and www.accesslearningacademy.com.  

This week’s special guest on the Hope Matrix is Mandy Bird. Mandy has been a Licensed Professional Counselor for almost 30 years, delivering hope and heart-centered therapy for individuals, couples, and families struggling with depression, anxiety, grief, and trauma. In light of current events, Mandy offers both in person and virtual therapy sessions. Mandy is also the host of the podcast Finding Hope, where guests share stories of loss, growth, joy, and leadership.

In this week’s episode, Mandy and Kathryn discuss grief, and the importance of bringing dignity back to the process of grieving. Mandy provides valuable insights into the importance of delving into the feelings associated with your grief, finding a positive support network, and embracing the things you learn about yourself during the grieving process. Kathryn and Mandy share their own stories, and discuss how hope can help lead us through our grief and into a more positive mindset on the other side.

For more information about the important work that Mandy is doing, visit www.mandybird.com and listen to Finding Hope at https://findinghopepodcast.com/.

This week's episode of the Hope Matrix follows Martin Rafferty, Executive Director of Youth Era, as he discusses how youth are stepping up and creating change during these challenging times.

Martin Rafferty is the Founder and Chief Executive Officer of Youth Era, a national non-profit that is revolutionizing how we view youth engagement. The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation Discovery Center highlighted Martin Rafferty as one of eight global changemakers. He was awarded the "2010 Oregon Mental Health Award of Excellence," "Advocate of the Year" by the Oregon Council of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry in 2013, and was named one of the "20 Under 40 Rising Business Stars" in 2018. Most recently, Martin was awarded the "2020 Henry J. Grass MD Access Award" by the Oregon Psychiatric Physicians Association.

Perhaps his most remarkable achievement is the creation of Youth Era, which came out of the chaos of Rafferty's childhood. At the age of 12, Rafferty came home to find a note on the door from his mother that read, "This isn't your home anymore." Finding himself homeless with nowhere to go, he sheltered in a wooded area next to a freeway near his former home. This wasn't Martin's first brush with trauma - the place Rafferty had once called home was one marked by domestic violence, abuse, and neglect. Homelessness exasperated the difficulties he was already facing. However, by 22, his life had dramatically changed; not only had he been adopted and moved across the country, he also launched Youth MOVE Oregon (the predecessor of Youth Era) based on his own experience accessing services as a homeless/foster youth.

Rafferty and his team at Youth Era have taken their experience nationwide to provide technical assistance and training to over 26,000 people in 24 states. They specialize in training in the areas of peer support, positive youth development, prevention, and postvention for crises, including youth suicide and school shootings. 

 
www.youthera.org

www.youthempowerment.com

www.upliftpeers.com


Episode 2 of The Hope Matrix can be streamed through: 

Website - www.thehopematrix.com
Apple Podcast - https://apple.co/2T6WbLo
Spotify - https://spoti.fi/3dF61h9
Youtube - https://bit.ly/2IFM524

Matthew W. Gallagher, Ph.D. is Associate Professor of Clinical Psychology at the Texas Institute of Measurement, Evaluation, and Statistics at the University of Houston. He has studied the impact of hope on all life outcomes, and is currently researching how to assess and promote hope across individuals of all backgrounds. In this episode, Kathryn and Matthew discuss the importance of hope in the context of current events, and examine how an education in hope skills at an early age can positively influence future successes. 

See more in Matthew's bio: https://www.uh.edu/class/psychology/about/people/matthew-gallagher/