Roddey to be honored for mental health work

Red Hook Principal Kyle Roddey will be honored next month with a Vision of Hope Award in recognition of his contributions beginning a student mental health program that is now utilized throughout the mid-Hudson Valley.

Access: Supports for Living, the organization with which Roddey worked to create the program, is honoring him at its foundation’s Vision of Hope Celebration fundraiser in Middletown.

Before he was principal at Red Hook, Roddey served the role for Fallsburg Junior Senior High School. He joined the school in January 2021, amid ongoing challenges every school community faced during the COVID-19 pandemic. He identified addressing the mental health needs of a student body that had been mired in months of isolation as an immediate priority. He reached out to a friend who worked for Access: Supports for Living, a Hudson Valley-based organization devoted to providing a range of social support services.

“I said, ‘Is there any support you could give us for this?’” Roddey recalled. “He and I kind of brainstormed and we started a mental health program in Fallsburg.”

Under the program, Access connected Fallsburg students with celebrities, such as retired professional athletes and Broadway performers, and conducted discussions and trainings regarding the common challenges we all face with mental health.

“What we did there, Access took it and they standardized it, and they started a whole school mental health initiative,” Roddey said, noting the program is used in schools in five different counties. That includes Red Hook, which hosted a mental health assembly with former New York Yankee and current broadcaster John Flaherty.

“Kyle recognized that he needed to do something,” said Mariann Cheney, director of development for the Access: Supports for Living Foundation. “What it became was a non-clinical approach to how we handle folks that have mental health challenges. … We reduce the stigma when we’re having conversations about that.

“We hold some people to a very high standard, but they’re just people,” she said of the impact when a known person discusses their own struggles. “If that resonates with a child and it gets them to their parent or someone they can talk to, a guidance counselor, a teacher so that they can get the help they need, then we’ve done our job.”

Access also connected Red Hook with Guardian Revival, the non-profit that brings a therapy dog to the high school once a month.

The Vision of Hope Award “honors an individual or organization whose value and concern for human life – eloquently demonstrated through their leadership, accomplishments and commitment – serves as an inspiration to others.”

In addition to Roddey, two organizations will be honored during the celebration scheduled for Sept. 19 at West Hills Country Club: Resorts World Catskills and the Lt. Gregg Atlas Foundation are also receiving Vision of Hope awards. Learn more about the event or purchase tickets at Access’ website.

Roddey said he was “certainly happy” to be given the award, but noted more importantly the money that is raised at the event will support crucial programs.

“I appreciate their support and acknowledgement for the early work we did,” Roddey said, “and I’m glad that my work in Fallsburg allowed them to serve all these other schools and students, including Red Hook.”