An alumnus of Kwantlen Polytechnic University (KPU) has been recognized for his work in making mental health care more accessible.
Kev Kokoska received the distinguished alumni award Tuesday (June 11) during the morning convocation ceremony at KPU's Newton campus. He graduated from KPU in 2010 with a bachelor of arts in psychology.
The award recognizes KPU alumni who demonstrate lifetime accomplishments in one or more areas: professional, entrepreneurial, innovation, service, exemplified resilience in the face of adversity, and significant regional, national, or international contribution.
KPU psychology instructor Jocelyn Lymburner nominated Kokoska for the award.
"What stands out most about Kev is his seemingly neverending enthusiasm and capacity for using his education and training to improve systems and provide opportunities for others," Lymburner said.
Kokoska is a counsellor and social entrepreneur whose work is dedicated to mental health care for incarcerated men and communities that are typically unable to afford counselling services.
"There's a history of incarceration and mental health issues in my family," Kokoska said in a KPU news release. "Prison is a hyper-masculine environment, and if you can find out what mental health practices work in the hardest environments, probably there's some value in them in other environments."
Kokoska calls the counselling market unbalanced, with only wealthy people being able to afford therapy.
He saw that, especially during the COVID-19 pandemic, more people needed mental health support and did not have the resources to access it.
"What's frustrating to me is that some people just need information. They haven't yet learned how mental health care works and what some basic skills are," he says. "It's unfair to charge people money to come to therapy when they may not need it. First, we need to give people all the information and tools they need to take care of themselves."
As a result, he founded Otherside Health, which offers what it calls "experiential psychotherapy."
"Otherside uses a three-phase contemporary psychodynamic process for relieving conditions that didn’t respond well to conventional therapy. This approach to therapy is relational, emotion-focused, and experiential," reads othersidehealth.com.
While pursuing his master's degree in counselling psychology at the University of British Columbia, he discovered his love for acting. He combined his newfound love for acting with his passion for mental health and created several one-person plays.
The plays focused on self-awareness with the goal of educating people about the importance of mental health.
"He took his interest further by studying documentary filmmaking while pursuing his PhD in interdisciplinary mental heath," reads the KPU release.
Now, Kokoska makes short educational mental health films and brings them into prisons. "So people there can learn about mental health in a more engaging way," he said.
