Mental health awareness training - serving a county that has suffered the highest rate of covid-19 cases and one of the highest death rates to the virus in new york state, the mental health…

Mental health awareness training - serving a county that has suffered the highest rate of covid-19 cases and one of the highest death rates to the virus in new york state, the mental health association of rockland will provide free mental health first aid (MHFA) trainings to various gatekeeper organizations in rockland county and empower over 2,000 people who are not mental health professionals to recognize mental health issues, DE-escalate crises, and connect people to services. This mental health awareness program will draw such gatekeeper organizations as funeral homes, libraries, law enforcement departments, nursing homes and health care settings. Trainings will also be provided to military service people, individuals RE-entering the community following incarceration, and their families. Youth MHFA trainings will be provided to school faculty and staff, adults with lbgtq youth, and child protective workers with an emphasis on communities of color and immigrant communities. Strategic partnerships with library systems, police departments, EMS, disability advocates, the teachers' center institute, and rockland county government will support grassroots outreach aided by an advisory committee that reflects the diverse community. An established MHFA survey will be administered following each training and will ask participants to rate their confidence in various mental health first aid skills. A key component of the program will be the three-month follow-up work that will engage recent trainees and schools in looking at how they used MHFA tools and what barriers they encountered in helping people. Information gleaned from this follow-up will inform subsequent trainings, reveal any challenges to accessing care, and help the advisory committee to identify communities that would most benefit from the training. To make mental health first aid accessible, trainings in spanish will be offered, as well as trainings with american sign language interpreters. Between 250 and 500 people will be trained in mental health first aid each year, with a total of 2,015 to be trained by the end of the grant period.