Community-Centered Mental Health Care
On Wednesday, Feb. 15, the first Mental Health First Aid (MHFA) class, led by Cypress Resilience Project for the Berkeley community, occurred. It was an incredibly informative and practical training. The class was attended by employees of the city of Berkeley, students from UC and Berkeley Community College, community organizers, city commissioners, retirees, healthcare workers and more. We now have 27 newly-certified mental health first aiders in our community!
Why is this so important?
The pandemic spotlighted the increase in mental health disorders, such as anxiety, depression, and suicide. One in five Americans will experience a mental health crisis in a given year. In addition, suicide rates are climbing, including child and teen suicides.
In California, over 284,000 youth cope with major depression. Sixty-six percent of kids with depression do not receive treatment. Suicide rates for kids ages 10–18 increased 20 percent between 2019–20. These statistics apply across all age, gender, sexual-orientation, ethnic, social, economic and religious divides.
Thankfully, California is addressing this with the most significant multi-year overhaul of our mental health system in state history. In 2022, Governor Gavin Newsom rolled out California’s
Master Plan for Kids’ Mental Health (MHFA), which includes training 40,000 more behavioral health professionals over the next few years.
In the meantime, what is needed is more education and public awareness about mental health disorders. The aim is to remove stigma so that mental health issues are responded to just as physical health issues would be. Community involvement can make a big difference, and that’s where mental health first aiders come in.
MHFA is a national statewide training program, which teaches the skills to identify, understand and respond to mental health crises and substance use disorders. MHFA creates a frontline in our community to detect and connect those with early signs of a mental health crisis to the proper help.
How do you know if someone is having a mental health challenge? Look for signs and symptoms. A sign is a visual change in someone that you can observe. You may notice mood swings, withdrawal, change in their appearance and/or personal hygiene, anger, sadness, etc.
A symptom is an experience going on inside someone else. The only way to become aware of a symptom is if someone tells you about it. It is easy to mislabel signs. Therefore, move from observing signs to inquiring about symptoms. For instance, “I’ve noticed that you look tired the past few days. Are you doing okay?” Then listen without judgment.
Often, when we are trying to listen non judgmentally, our face gives us away when we hear something unexpected. This reaction might make the other person feel ashamed or make them shut down. Practice listening as if you’ve heard it all before, with no change in your facial expression. This is a necessary skill for a mental health first aider.
The MHFA touchstone is ALGEE, a five-pronged action plan to assess and support someone in a mental health crisis. These steps can be taken in any order and repeated, as necessary.
● APPROACH, assess and assist with any crisis — assess the risk of suicide or harm and look for signs of trauma and high anxiety.
● LISTEN to the person non judgmentally.
● GIVE the person support, reassurance and information
● ENCOURAGE the person to seek appropriate professional help.
● ENCOURAGE the person to seek self-help and other support strategies.
If you are interested in joining us and growing the number of mental health first aiders in our Berkeley community, email reimaginingberkeley@gmail.com.
This article was first published in the Berkeley Times on February 23, 2023.
