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webinar
February 9, 2026 5:00 PM - 6:00 PM EST

AI, Chatbots and Mental Health: What Families and Communities Need to Know

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AI, Chatbots and Mental Health: What Families and Communities Need to Know

Date

February 9, 2026 5:00 PM - 6:00 PM EST

Location

Online

Cost

Free

Credit

About This Webinar

 AI and chatbots are becoming part of everyday life. At home, in schools, in healthcare settings, and in moments connected to stress, anxiety, and mental health. That raises real questions for families and communities.

Join Vital Lessons for a timely conversation about digital safety, mental health, and how AI tools are showing up in people’s lives right now.

We’ll be joined by Omer Golan, Founder and CEO of the MyWhatIf Foundation, alongside Randi Weingarten and Dr. Vin Gupta, to explore what these tools can offer, where the risks are, and how to approach them with care and clear guardrails.

We’ll discuss:

  • How chatbots are being used for emotional support and mental health
  • What research and lived experience tell us about benefits and risks
  • Key digital safety questions for families and caregivers
  • Why human connection and ethics still matter most

This is a grounded conversation. No hype. No fear. Just clear information and thoughtful discussion.

This session is part of AFT’s Vital Lessons webinar series, bringing timely, trusted and practical health and wellness conversations to members in education, healthcare and public services.

Missed a Vital Lessons webinar? Access all sessions for free: https://webinars.on24.com/aft/VitalLessons

Speakers

Omer Golan

Founder and Ceo, MyWhatIf Foundation

Omer Golan is the Founder and CEO of MyWhatIf Foundation, a tech nonprofit developing an innovative AI-based approach to PTSD recovery that does not require reliving trauma. A serial tech entrepreneur and interdisciplinary artist, Omer's work at the foundation combines storytelling, neuroscience, evidence-based research, and emerging technology to help individuals reduce trauma symptoms and reconnect with hope, agency, and future-oriented thinking. His work is shaped by both professional experience and lived resilience, and he is committed to making mental health support and trauma recovery more accessible, humane, and empowering.

Profile picture for user Randi Weingarten
President, AFT

RANDI WEINGARTEN is president of the 1.8 million-member AFT, AFL-CIO, which represents teachers; paraprofessionals and school-related personnel; higher education faculty and staff; nurses and other healthcare professionals; local, state and federal government employees; and early childhood educators. The AFT champions fairness; democracy; economic opportunity; and high-quality public education, healthcare and public services for students, their families and communities. The AFT and its members advance these principles through community engagement, organizing, collective bargaining and political activism, and especially through members’ work.

Profile picture for user vinnie.gup
Public Health Physician, Professor, and Health Policy Expert

Dr. Vin Gupta, MD, MPA, is a public health physician, professor, and health policy expert. As a Harvard-trained lung specialist, Vin has spent the past 15 years working worldwide to improve public health for organizations including the US Centers for Disease Control, the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation, the Harvard Global Health Institute, the World Health Organization, and the Pentagon’s Center for Global Health Engagement. Given his diversity of experiences, he is now a trusted advisor and contributor to national and international media outlets on several of the most important health issues today, including serving as a regular health policy analyst for NBC News and contributor to the New York Times and CNN New Day. As you will see below, Vin is committed to voicing evidence-informed perspectives across a range of critical issues like domestic US healthcare reform, the vaping epidemic, the effects of climate change on human health, and gun control. In doing so, he speaks honestly and is driven by evidence, not opinion or dogma.

Professional Credit

Share My Lesson webinars are available for one-hour of PD credit. A certificate of completion will be available for download at the end of your session that you can submit for your school's or district's approval.

In addition, Share My Lesson has arrangements in place as follows:

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