Discussion around mental health awareness and addiction recovery abounded at the Green River Regional Education Cooperative on Tuesday for a morning-long session titled “Discovering Mental Resilience.”

Kentucky Lt. Gov. Jacqueline Coleman opened the session, speaking on the importance of mental health care in Kentucky schools and praising the work of educators throughout numerous different crises.

“If the tragedies that we have been through as a commonwealth have taught us anything, it is that we need to honor the people who show up for our kids every day,” Coleman told attendees. “Every single one of you serves in some capacity as the tip of the spear in your community when it comes to our kids and when it comes to lifting folks up.”

Coleman also spoke on efforts to prioritize mental health awareness following the COVID-19 pandemic. She said work began then to aid students as they returned to school in-person, since they were facing “the frustration, the isolation, the uncertainty, (and) the anxiety” upon their return.

She said this is what created the Commissioner’s Student Advisory Council in the state Department of Education. Coleman said the team was “100% student led” and consisted of over 300 kids from across the state.

She said this resulted in different policy recommendations. One, which made its way into the Kentucky General Assembly, allows school districts to give excused absences for mental health needs.

“That was one of about six recommendations that they wanted to see get through,” Coleman said. “We’re going to keep at this until we get every single recommendation you have made through.”

Coleman said Kentucky is one of six states that have been added to the National Governors Association Summit on Youth Mental Health, and the state has received $2 million from the federal government to implement statewide measures to improve student mental health resources.

“The future of Kentucky’s economy is in our classrooms today,” Coleman said. “We all have a vested, collective interest in ensuring that those students are as prepared as they possibly can be.”

Following Coleman’s address, attendees heard a discussion from Dr. Raghu Appasani, a San Francisco-based addiction psychiatrist, and Jason and Ashley Wahler, who shared their journeys through the recovery process.

Jason Wahler, an actor who appeared in the TV shows “Laguna Beach” and “The Hills,” spoke on his past struggles with prescription drug addiction and alcoholism.

He said in the late 1990s, he received attention from different psychiatrists and medical professionals and was given medication to assist with OCD. However, this did not improve the “underlying issues.”

“I just want to give kudos to where we are today because I think the landscape has changed so much versus what it was back then,” he said. “I didn’t know how to communicate around what was going on.”

Ashley Wahler, who was married to Jason before his addiction and aided him through recovery, told attendees she grew up believing addiction “was a choice.”

She said the process of recovery takes everyone around the addict’s family.

“If the family gets help, the success rate of the addict is so much higher,” she said. “You want the addict to succeed, you got to get the help.”