Wayne State Community Mental Health First Aid Course Training to Help People in Crisis

May is Mental Health Awareness Month. The National Institute of Mental Health estimates that 1 in 5 adults has a mental illness.

Seth Allard is a social work doctoral student at Wayne State University. He is a Mental Health First Aid instructor and recently hosted a workshop for the Wayne State community.

“It’s very common to have gatekeeper training like this within organizations. And in the community, these are primarily designed for the general community, but clinicians and health professionals definitely use them. “We are benefiting from it,” he said.

Allard says the training will help build the confidence and knowledge to help people in mental health crisis, and provide them with resources.

“One of the things about having common-sense, applicable ideas about how to be helpful is that it gives people confidence. And oftentimes that’s what people need,” he said. “There are a lot of people out there who are already empathetic listeners, critical thinkers, really good friends, and really good communicators.”

Allard said she was inspired to pursue a career in mental health after watching her mother as a child. His mother was a nurse who supported people with disabilities.

“The idea of ​​discriminating against individuals because of mental illness or mental health issues, in some ways…meeting my mom and working with people helped me dissuade that idea,” he said.

Allard is a member of the Sault Ste. He is a Marie Chippewa Indian. xtHe is also a Marine Corps Veteran. Another reason he works in the mental health field, he says, is due to the rise in suicides in the veteran population since 9/11.

“When you’re part of a generation that has different impacts on mental health and you’re interested in that, you start to be drawn in to want to know the rest of the story,” Allard said. Ta.

Allard previously worked in the field of suicide prevention. He has compiled all his experience into this course.

Allard says caring for people in our communities also includes being mindful of word choices that can further stigmatize people suffering from mental illness.

“It takes a certain amount of courage, a certain amount of curiosity, and a certain amount of humility to understand the influence and power of our words and how they affect policy, politics, health care, etc. is.”

The first aid class is a day-long training using the 5-step ALGEE protocol to assess, listen non-judgmentally, provide reassurance, and encourage professional help and self-help (self-care) strategies.

Allard said the course is unique in that first responders will help connect people to resources, while mental health professionals will diagnose and treat those in distress.

Until quality mental health care is available, he says, people will need training to prepare for mental health crises. Allard says people often want to help others, but when it comes to mental health, they hesitate.

“When they hear about topics like mental health and suicide prevention and trauma, they say, ‘I don’t know if I can handle that. I’m not a mental health professional.’ You know, you don’t have to be a mental health professional to help and serve people in your community,” he said.

Two million people around the world have been trained in mental health first aid, and the movement is growing, Allard said. He plans to teach a first aid class to military personnel and veterans later this summer.