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Grace Lutheran Church will host free Mental Health First Aid training

Ripon Commonwealth Press - 6/1/2017

Grace Lutheran Church will host a free Mental Health First Aid training Monday and Tuesday, June 26 and 27 from 5 to 9 p.m.

This eight-hour training course gives people the tools to identify when someone might be struggling with a mental-health or substance-use problem and to connect them with appropriate support and resources when necessary.

One in five Americans has a mental illness, but many are reluctant to seek help or might not know where to turn for care. Unlike physical conditions, symptoms of mental-health and substance-use problems can be difficult to detect.

For friends and family members, it can be hard to know when and how to step in. As a result, those in need of mental-health services often do not get them until it is too late.

Just as CPR helps even those without clinical training assist an individual having a heart attack, Mental Health First Aid prepares participants to interact with a person experiencing a mental-health crisis.

Participants will learn a five-step action plan that guides them through the process of reaching out and offering appropriate support.

"Through this program, we hope to take the fear and hesitation out of starting conversations about mental-health and substance-use problems," said Linda Rosenberg, president and CEO of the National Council for Behavioral Health, which helped bring Mental Health First Aid to the United States in 2008. "When more people are equipped with the tools they need to start a dialogue, more people can get the help they may need."

In 10 years, Mental Health First Aid has become a movement in the United States - more than 550,000 people are certified mental-health first aiders, and that number is growing.

This course is sponsored by the Berlin Area School District, which received grant funds for mental-health first-aid training in Berlin and the surrounding communities.

To date, more than 250 adults have been trained by Berlin instructors, and they are excited to bring this training to Ripon.

For more information or to participate in the Mental Health First Aid training, visit www.tinyurl.com/RiponMHFA or call Mandy Hughes at 920-361-5459 or email her at ahughes@berlin.k12.wi.us.