Part of our agency's new mental health initiative is that we are providing Mental Health First Aid Trainings for community members and agencies that work with youth.

Mental Health First Aid is a national initiative similar to CPR First Aid Trainings. The training focuses on teaching everyday community members and youth agencies the basic skills to recognize the common signs and symptoms of mental health issues among youth. The curriculum also provides a basic model for participants that teaches them how to intervene in crisis and non crisis situations.

As we know, trauma is very prevalent among the population of youth we work with. Often there are many barriers such as the lack of access to services, cultural stigma, education, and much more that prevent youth from receiving the mental health support they need. Our goal as an agency is that we hope to ameliorate these barriers by providing MHFA within the community.