WEST CHESTER–With more than one in five Americans experiencing a mental health diagnosis each year, any one of us may be called on to help another person who is struggling at some time or another.
Thankfully, there is a program that teaches participants how to identify, understand and respond to signs of mental health and substance use challenges and crisis. Mental Health First Aid (MHFA) is an international public health program that has been extensively researched and is governed by the National Council For Mental Wellbeing. It is being taught locally at no cost to participants through the Chester County office of Mental Health.
“Someone can learn how to help somebody ‘in the moment.’ They are not a doctor, but they get enough training to help somebody until a professional gets there,” according to Amanda Blue, Master of Public Health, Chester County Program Director for Mental Health First Aid and Education Director for the David Farber ASPIRE (Advancement of Suicide Prevention Intervention Research and Education) Center. She is also a program instructor.
Rebekka Schultz Thorpe, who works as an educator and in public planning, took the class. She compared learning Mental Health First Aid to taking a CPR class.
Learning through Mental Health First Aid might save a life. (SUBMITTED PHOTO/TRACY BEHRINGER)
“While we are not certified to diagnose or treat like a doctor can, an ordinary citizen can respond after determining that something ‘isn’t quite right’,” she said.
Thorpe, who said she’s encouraged her friends and colleagues to take the course, also noted that just by conversing and discussing potential situations with others in the classroom gives the structure and framework to compassionately respond to a real life mental health scenario with greater confidence.
Trish Ward is a Nursing Professional Development specialist at Chester County Hospital who coordinates the program there. She said the program has provided her insight she didn’t have before.
“It made me look at the world differently,” she said. “It promotes compassion and empathy in a new way.”
Ward said that when a patient comes into the hospital agitated, difficult and challenging, she steps back and tries to understand what’s driving that person.
It’s usually something simple: Are they in pain? Hungry? Are they triggered by a childhood experience? Does she recognize substance abuse?
Learning how to deal with people in a mental health or substance abuse crisis. (SUBMITTED PHOTO/TRACY BEHRINGER)
She tries to understand and look at the bigger picture. Usually someone’s coming to the hospital is a traumatic experience, unless they are having a baby.
Regardless, there is one easy thing the layperson can do for someone in crisis and it’s a simple one at that. They can refer them to the “988 CRISIS Helpline.”
“If you walk away after just referring them to the Crisis Hotline when someone calls you in a terrible spot, they get professional help fast,” Ward said.
The need for the program is evident when one looks at some of the alarming statistics. According to the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention, 130 Americans die from suicide every day. From 1999 to 2019, 841,000 people died from drug overdoses. But there is good news. More than four million Americans have been trained as Mental Health First Aiders, and the program is taught regularly in Chester County. Adults 18 and older may register for the Adult MHFA classes, which teach adults how to assist other adults, or Youth MHFA, which teaches adults how to assist adolescents and young adults.
The MHFA training begins with about 90 minutes of online work and a full day in the classroom. At the core of the training is the First Aid Action Plan, which has five steps First Aiders may use in no particular order: Assess for risk of suicide or harm; Listen non-judgmentally; Give reassurance and Information; Encourage appropriate professional help and Encourage self-help and other support strategies.
Upon completion of the program, participants receive a national Mental Health First Aid certification, good for three years.
For more information about MHFA classes or to register, go to Chester County’s Department of Mental Health /Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities website https://www.chesco.org/5911/Mental-Health-First-Aid-Training-MHFAor to the www.chestercountysuicideprevention.com and search for mental health first aid.