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With some questionable health advice being posted by your friends on Facebook, politicians arguing about the state of the American healthcare system and a new medical study being summarized in just a sentence or two on TV---that seems to contradict the study you heard summarized yesterday---it can be overwhelming to navigate the ever-changing landscape of health news.

Mental Health First Aid

flickr user Edgar Languren (https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/)

If someone near you collapsed right now, would you be able to perform CPR? How about open heart surgery? This example is used by Heather Williams, a Substance Abuse Specialist at  Cape Girardeau’s Community Counseling Center  as she begins training a new group of Mental Health First Aid students.

I’m Brooke Hildebrand Clubbs, Director of Health Communication at Southeast Missouri State University and I recently became one of the one million people who have completed a Mental Health First Aid course.

Dr. Anthony F. Jorm and his wife, Betty A. Kitchener came up with the idea of a first aid course that would focus on mental health just as the Red Cross first aid courses focus on physical health. People who perform CPR or stop bleeding aren’t expected to be able to provide more advanced treatment and people who recognize signs of depression in a colleague aren’t expected to be able to provide extensive counseling. Both types of first aid are meant  to save lives and get people who need help to professionals.

Participants in Mental Health First Aid courses learn how to help a person who may be experiencing a mental health related crisis or problem by:

• Assessing  for risk of suicide or harm
• Listening  non-judgmentally
• Giving  reassurance and information
• Encouraging  professional help and
• Encouraging  self-help and support strategies.

Resources:
http://www.semissourian.com/story/2335415.html
http://mhfamissouri.org/
http://www.apa.org/monitor/2013/07-08/first-aid.aspx
https://dmh.mo.gov/
https://afsp.org/our-work/chapters/events/?chapter_code=MO

Dr. Brooke Hildebrand Clubbs is an assistant professor in the Department of Leadership, Middle & Secondary Education. She writes for special publications of The Southeast Missourian and is a certified Community Health Worker.
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