Mental Health First Aid
This entry has been selected as a finalist in the
Rethinking Mental Health: Improving Community Wellbeing competition.
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12-hour training designed to give the public key skills to help someone who is developing a mental health problem or experiencing a mental health crisis. The program helps build mental health literacy — helping the public identify, understand and respond to signs of mental illness.
About You
Section 1: About You
First Name
Susan
Last Name
Partain
Website URL
Country
United States
Section 2: About Your Organization
Organization Name
National Council for Community Behavioral Healthcare
Organization Website
Organization Phone
202.684.7457
Organization Address
1701 K Street NW, Suite 400, Washington, DC 20006
Organization Country
United States
Is your organization a
Non‐profit/NGO/citizen sector organization
Your idea
Name Your Project
Mental Health First Aid
Country your work focuses on
United States
Describe Your Idea
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12-hour training designed to give the public key skills to help someone who is developing a mental health problem or experiencing a mental health crisis. The program helps build mental health literacy — helping the public identify, understand and respond to signs of mental illness.
Innovation
What makes your idea unique?
Mental Health First Aid is a groundbreaking public education initiative that focuses on three key elements: recognizing the warning signs of a mental health emergency, increasing skills to help individuals reach out to those with mental health challenges, and providing an engaging framework for understanding how professional and self-help supports can help. The program helps members of the public to better understand the real struggles a person with mental illness is experiencing, which is both powerful at combating stigma and crucial in supporting those with mental illnesses. The program is unique in its approach to give regular members of the public the confidence to provide support, offer comfort, and help with recovery on those with mental illness – and has the power to bring communities together in ways they never would have connected otherwise.
Mental Health First Aiders, from social workers to the general public, are equipped to build trusting relationships that help them to help persons in need. Mental Health First Aiders are trained to connect people to professional care and are NOT intended to diagnose or treat mental health problems.
Do you have a patent for this idea?
Impact
This Entry is about (Issues)
What impact have you had?
In its first year, Mental Health First Aid USA certified more than 300 instructors to teach the program in 33 states across the nation. These instructors in turn delivered the program to more than 3,000 community members in a variety of fields, ranging from:
-Law Enforcement & Other first responders
-Employers & business leaders
-Primary Care givers, including nurses
-Non-clinical mental health center staff
-Faith leaders & communities
-Substance abuse professionals
-Other caring citizens
Problem
It’s easy to tell when someone is unable to breathe, or when someone needs CPR. But how prepared are we to deal with mental health emergencies?
Most of us assume mental illness only affects others. However, it is likely that we will encounter someone in our family, workplace, school, church, or community who is facing a mental health challenge and may require support. One in four American adults suffers from a diagnosable mental disorder - mental illness is more common than cancer, diabetes, or heart disease in the US.
The stigma surrounding mental illness often prevents people from seeking help or even acknowledging that they need help. In fact, nearly two-thirds of people with mental health disorders do not seek treatment.
Mental Health First Aid exists to lessen these disparities between physical and mental illnesses, and does so through a simple approach to build one’s confidence and ability to help.
Actions
Initially, we worked to develop and adapt the core curriculum for US audiences and to gather input from a variety of consumer and professional sources. Although we are happy to have a core adult curriculum in place, further work is needed to tailor the curriculum for specific audiences (law enforcement, youth, etc) and to ensure the content remains current. We will continue to offer instructor training courses to certify instructors to be able to offer the program in more communities nationwide. In growing this network of instructors, we also need the ability to support and track all certified instructors to ensure a consistent, quality program is being provided nationwide. As a part of this support, we will conduct extensive public outreach regarding the program to let the public know that this course is available and build the case for individuals to go through the 12-hour course.
Results
Our vision is for Mental Health First Aid USA to be available in all 50 states and to be as commonplace as regular first aid or CPR by 2020. If we are able to continually grow the network of instructors nationwide, and if we can properly support these instructors as we grow, Mental Health First Aid has the ability to achieve at least the same evidence as the program in Australia – five published studies show that those who train in Mental Health First Aid are more confident in providing help to others, more likely to advise people to seek professional help, more aware of health professionals and treatments, and have less stigmatizing attitudes and social distance from people with mental disorders. Surveys have also found that Mental Health First Aid improves the mental health of those who receive training.
What will it take for your project to be successful over the next three years? Please address each year separately, if possible.
The core strength of Mental Health First Aid lies in its ability to be integrated into communities consistently and with quality nationwide. The National Council is challenged with ensuring the instructors we have certified present this quality program through proactively meeting instructor’s needs through our technical assistance efforts & by building our capacity to keep up with training demand (both at the instructor and 12-hour level) and to evaluate the program efficacy at every step of the way. In the coming year, we will be building and extending our online platform to include a central portal for collecting community evaluation information, and staying ahead of our instructor needs by creating a variety of curriculum supplements and marketing/development templates for all certified instructors. We will also begin to expand our team of trainers (those whom are able to grant certification to instructors). One priority for the next few years is to build ways to connect not only our network of instructors, but also the public audiences whom have gone through the 12-hour program – giving further venues for Mental Health First Aiders to connect & share resources and ideas. The next three years will also be about forming the legs for the program to achieve long-term sustainability in the US – forming key connections with other organizations & establishing a similar evidence base as the Australian program.
What would prevent your project from being a success?
Challenges to the success of the program stem from our ability to build a strong support structure for the program. This includes retention issues for instructors certified, particularly in areas where the program may be more needed or is less saturated, which could be bolstered by our support and technical assistance efforts to instructors. If we are not ahead of our instructors in providing the materials they need to conduct the program, or if we do not adequately incorporate feedback from the communities, we will ultimately lose the quality and consistency of the program nationwide. Losing this will not allow us to have a platform to evaluate or continue to offer Mental Health First Aid in the US.
How many people will your project serve annually?
1001‐10,000
What is the average monthly household income in your target community, in US Dollars?
Less than $50
Does your project seek to have an impact on public policy?
Sustainability
What stage is your project in?
Operating for 1‐5 years
In what country?
United States
Is your initiative connected to an established organization?
Yes
If yes, provide organization name.
National Council for Community Behavioral Healthcare
How long has this organization been operating?
More than 5 years
Does your organization have a Board of Directors or an Advisory Board?
Yes
Does your organization have any non-monetary partnerships with NGOs?
No
Does your organization have any non-monetary partnerships with businesses?
No
Does your organization have any non-monetary partnerships with government?
No
Please tell us more about how these partnerships are critical to the success of your innovation.
Approximately 150 words left (1200 characters).
What are the three most important actions needed to grow your initiative or organization?
public outreach to get individuals on board to take the 12-hour program, connecting with key audiences to locate the talented individuals to deliver the training program, capacity for support of instructor and trainer network as we grow.
The Story
What was the defining moment that led you to this innovation?
Staff at the National Council frequently discuss how working in the mental health field really improves our own perceptions and attitudes about persons with mental illness. Many of us have a friend or family member who has been touched by mental illness and addictions — in the past we may have ignored them, branded them as having attitude problems or moral failings, or simply been clueless about how to help even if we wanted to. But today, a basic understanding of mental illness — that we’ve developed on the job — allows us to better connect with those who need help. When we heard about Mental Health First Aid, the light bulb went off — we immediately realized that with this program, we could empower thousands of other people — who don’t work in mental health like we do —with knowledge, understanding, and acceptance of mental illness. We could bust the stigma around mental illness and help overcome the feeling of helplessness that overwhelms those who encounter someone with mental illness. In summary, it was our personal experiences that made us realize how much communities in the USA need Mental Health First Aid.
Tell us about the social innovator behind this idea.
Mental Health First Aid was created in 2000 by Professor Anthony Jorm, a respected mental health literacy professor, and Betty Kitchener, a nurse specializing in health education, to improve the mental health literacy of members of the Australian community. Mental Health First Aid USA was conceived by Linda Rosenberg, President and CEO of the National Council for Community Behavioral Healthcare. When Rosenberg heard about the Australian program, she knew it was a great idea and just what we need in the USA where mental illness continues to get short shrift. She approached the program’s founders in Australia and learned about the strong evidence base they had built up. Rosenberg then worked closely with Kitchener to license and adapt Mental Health First Aid for the USA. Rosenberg was also the force behind the launch of the program and its dissemination in communities across the USA through National Council member organizations — community-based mental health and addictions treatment providers.
How did you first hear about Changemakers?
Newsletter from Changemakers
If through another, please provide the name of the organization or company
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Comments
If this competition is about innovation, then the people in Australia who started this many years ago should be acknowledged. Doing someone else's program without acknowledging them is not innovation.
The three collaborative entities that worked to develop the Mental Health First Aid curriculum for US audiences (the Missouri Mental Health Office of Transformation, the Maryland Mental Health Transformation Office, and the National Council for Community Behavioral Healthcare) greatly appreciate the founding vision of and ongoing collaboration with Betty Kitchener and Tony Jorm in Australia. Please read the “Story” section of our entry to learn more about the development of the program in Australia and here in the US.
On November 20, 2009 the judges reviewed the entries for the Changemakers Rethinking Mental Health: Improving Community Wellbeing competition and would like to pass on the following feedback (listed below) for your entry. Thank you for applying and for your hard work in the field. We are excited to archive your entry to serve as a leading solution for the worldwide community of innovators. We wish you continued luck with your innovative, sustainable, and socially impactful initiatives.
All the best, The Changemakers Team
“This is a simple and straightforward initiative and has a huge impact on reducing stigma. It’s a great example of an initiative that has been taken to scale, especially since it has spread widely through Australia and now to the U.S. through good knowledge and evidence.”
“I like this initiative a lot – It should have been done years and years ago. What I like most about it is that it unifies the head and the body. Many physical health initiatives don’t take mental health into account, and this initiative brings both into consideration.”
“This is a simple and great idea! I’m interested in learning more about how you plan on satisfying demands. Specifically, how would this kind of an initiative work in a developing country? I only ask because it might be difficult to satisfy the demands of a population if the system does not have the capacity to deal with it and especially if this initiative is taken to scale in developing countries. Overall, the social impact of this initiative could be extremely great and if it’s done well, this could be very important.”
- Changemakers Rethinking Mental Health: Improving Community Wellbeing Judges
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