The Hyattsville Youth Advisory Council (YAC) is addressing challenges youth face in accessing mental health resources and ensuring their peers have the support they need.
The youth council, made up of 10 students who attend local schools, including Northwestern High School, St. Jerome Academy, College Park Academy and Prince George’s Community College, advises the Hyattsville mayor and city council on issues impacting youth.
At their Oct. 9 meeting, YAC members discussed plans to expand mental health awareness by promoting online software to help youths and their family members recognize someone struggling with mental health.
Online training programs are offered in software such as Question, Persuade and Refer (QPR); the Be There Certificate; and Mental Health First Aid. These courses are designed to teach participants how to identify the signs of mental illness, talk to someone who may be struggling and refer them to a professional, Ronald Lewis said.
Members discussed creating flyers and posters featuring the 988 Suicide and Crisis Lifeline, as well as spreading awareness through social media posts on Instagram. They plan to coordinate with the city’s communications team to release content for events such as World Teen Mental Wellness Day on March 2 and Mental Health Awareness Month in May, said Litzy Velasquez, a YAC member and a junior at College Park Academy.
Ronald Lewis, the city’s Children and Youth Programs coordinator, spoke often during the meeting, guiding the council’s discussion on mental health. Lewis explained how the training program QPR works: “It teaches you how to identify someone struggling with their mental health. Things they may say or do, and some behaviors.” It also addresses persuasion, “because you may try and persuade your friend, your family, whoever to seek help, get resources they need, and be referred to a mental health service.”
EveryMind is a nonprofit mental health organization that offers QPR training services, Lewis said.
Lewis also introduced the Be There Certificate, which is a self-paced training aimed more toward youth, teaching them how to recognize mental health challenges and provide support in a safe way. The program has six interactive lessons, takes less than two hours and is free. It’s also available in French, English and Spanish.
In addition to QPR and Be There, another program the group plans to promote is mental health first aid, which offers training for youths and adults. The course teaches participants how to identify, understand and respond to signs of mental illness and substance use disorders.
City Councilmember Joanne Waszczak (Ward 1) attended the meeting and said the mental health first aid program is beneficial and widely available. “It has a youth-specific training and an age-agnostic one that anyone can take,” Waszczak said. “It’s good because you learn the same thing as other people in the community, and you have a shared language.”
Waszczak said police officers in Hyattsville take the mental health first aid training “to learn how to interact with people, because sometimes someone might think that someone needs police attention, but they actually need the attention of a social worker.”
Members of the youth council explained why they chose to focus on mental health programs this year. “I actually joined YAC to help people with their mental health,” said Anastasia Keith, who attends St. Jerome Academy. Velasquez added that mental health awareness is needed beyond Hyattsville. “In our previous meeting, we also spoke about how this was a big issue, not just in our city, but nationwide and worldwide,” she said.
The next YAC meeting, which is open to the public, is scheduled for Dec. 11 at 6 p.m. in the Hyattsville Municipal Building, 4310 Gallatin Street.
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Ryan Ross is a graduate journalism student at the University of Maryland.
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