VFCA2017

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Mental Health First Aid for Public Safety (Room 2B)

Mental Health First Aid USA teaches a 5-step action plan encompassing the skills, resources, and knowledge to help an individual in crisis connect with appropriate professional, peer, and self-help care. Participants learn the unique risk factors and warning signs of mental health problems, build an understanding of the importance of early intervention, and, most importantly, teach individuals how to help someone in crisis or experiencing a mental health challenge. The course is taught to firefighters, police, first responders, corrections officers, and other public safety audiences around the country. Mental Health First Aid for Public Safety provides officers with more response options to help them deescalate incidents and better understand mental illnesses so they can respond to mental health related calls appropriately without compromising safety.  This program is included on the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration’s National Registry of Evidence-based Program and Practices and is managed by the National Council for Behavioral Health. Course objectives include: introduce participants to risk factors and warning signs of mental health problems, demonstrate how to offer initial help in a mental health crisis and connect people to the appropriate professional, peer, social, and self-help care; teach common risk factors and warning signs of specific illnesses like anxiety, depressions, substance abuse, bipolar disorder, eating disorders and schizophrenia; provide firefighters and other emergency responders with the tools to defuse common mental health crises; promote mental health literacy; and combat the stigma of mental illness. There is a 30 student limit for this class.