what Mental Health First Aid tries to do is decrease stigma? Do we not necessarily move forward and trying to talk to somebody, when we're worried? Maybe they've been expressing some suicidal thoughts, or they're expressing some things that you've maybe never heard of before? How do you ask questions into somebody like that? A lot of times, we find you're far more likely to want to intervene. If somebody has medical issues. If somebody breaks their leg, or somebody's had a heart attack, you know, you may go and you want to visit them in the hospital, you want to talk to them, you want to ask if they're okay. But yet, when it comes to mental health issues, we don't necessarily always go as quickly. When someone has a physical injury or appears to be in cardiac distress. The very first responders can be someone well trained in first aid, and then a call the 911 will bring the paramedics.
But with a mental health issue, small or large, we might not know what to do, or even who to call. This is random acts of knowledge presented by Heartland Community College. I'm your host, Steve fast. Today, we are talking about mental health first aid training that can make an impact in the short and long term.
I'm Megan Moser and I currently work at McLean County Center for Human Services. I'm the crisis program manager for our county. But I also do Mental Health First Aid trainings and have been doing them for we realize today it's going on nine years. So it's been a very long time, now that we've been doing them for the area. So really enjoy getting to do it. My background is I've been working in behavioral health for probably 18 years now. Got my start with youth and adolescents and residential treatment. And then I've been doing crisis work for the past nine years. And I use my background in that. And then can I bring some of my expertise and just being able to start the discussion about mental health through mental health first aid? I think it's just a great program.
Tell us a little bit. What Mental Health First Aid is that what does that mean? You know, I think if people said we teach first aid, they'd have a general idea of how to stop somebody from bleeding or something like that. Yeah, but Mental Health First Aid, probably requires people to maybe be a little more aware of what to look for.
Absolutely. So kind of what it was, is Mental Health First Aid got started actually by somebody was actually a husband and wife, couple in Australia, who had lived experience with mental health and felt, you know, for medical issues, there is CPR first aid that we do so that people can recognize signs and symptoms. Why in the world? Don't we have something similar to that for mental health? Why aren't more people aware or wanting to kind of become involved? If somebody may be struggling with a crisis that's more mental health related? And how do we kind of come up with a more standardized way to get that information, you know, to people, so we're not necessarily it's not like you CPR, or first aid is teaching anybody to be a surgeon necessarily. It's just saying, hey, you need to watch out for things, you know, with the people around you. So this is very similar with Mental Health First Aid, it's really just trying to get you to see what the signs and symptoms are, what some common crisis situations might be for mental health related things. And then how do you intervene? How do you talk to somebody? How do you try to prevent things like maybe suicide or things like that? It's very much an educational course on kind of what to look for, who are the prime candidates best suited for Mental Health First Aid training?
You know, I hear it in educational environment, I imagine that there are lots of different roles that people might have here where that could really come in handy. What sorts of jobs or situations do people find themselves in where they could benefit from Mental Health First Aid training?
That's a great question, I get asked that a lot. And really, it's for anyone. So what we want is community members, just anyone in the public to know more about what to look for, because all of us from time to time, have issues with mental health, you know, our mental wellness. And so we just have a lack of information sometimes about what what we should really be looking for and things. So it's really for anyone, anyone who wants to know more about it. It can even be mental health professionals, you know, as a mental health professional, when I took it, several years ago, I thought, you know, what am I going to learn from this course. And it completely changed the way that I did my work and completely change the way that I even interacted with people around me, because it really shows you kind of stigmatizing things like language or things that we might use, and really helps you to see it from a perspective of, you know, how do we just really help people, you know, get out of worrying about what their specific diagnosis might be, or being afraid of what to say to somebody, and really just trying to get anyone to feel more comfortable with just communicating and connecting with the people around them.
I know that talking here in our interview won't replace a full mental health, first aid training. But if you could kind of give us a couple of things that people really could look for. One of the first things I would want to know about is is there a certain degree of situational awareness that somebody can have to be looking for somebody that might be in distress and what what does that mean? What are the types of things
that a person can provide that little bit of help that first aid help, and what should they be looking for, or being aware of.
So you know, what we kind of show with mental health first aid during the training is kind of looking at different types of mental health issues or diagnosis, and maybe becoming more specific to what might be helpful for that. But I think overall, what we really talk about is being more aware, just like you said, you know, a lot of times we can be disconnected, we can be very isolated, especially, you know, as we're coming out of the pandemic, we're even more isolated. And so sometimes we aren't paying attention to the small things that we could be noticing, or sometimes even big things, you know, sometimes you're far less likely to ask somebody who's crying or somebody who's upset, you know, are you okay? Because you maybe don't know that person that well, or you feel like it would make them embarrassed. And so it keeps people from even asking simple questions like, Are you okay? And that's what keeps things even more disconnected. So what Mental Health First Aid tries to do is decrease stigma. So by doing that, we kind of identify what that stigma is, why do we not necessarily move forward and trying to talk to somebody, when we're worried? Maybe they've been expressing some suicidal thoughts, or they're expressing some things that you've maybe you've never heard of before? How do you ask questions to somebody like that, a lot of times, we find, you're far more likely to want to intervene, if somebody has medical issues, if somebody breaks their leg, or somebody's had a heart attack, you know, you may go and you want to visit them in the hospital, you want to talk to them, you want to ask if they're okay. But yet, when it comes to mental health issues, we don't necessarily always go as quickly, you know, to somebody and say, hey, you know, I know that you are in the hospital for a suicide attempt, is there anything I can do? You know, we don't do those same things. And so the very first thing it does is really decreased that stigma. So we talk a lot about that. And then the next thing it does is kind of provides that education, so that you're not looking at something that maybe you haven't experienced before in your life, at it kind of from a lens of, you know, man, why would somebody act that way? Instead, you know more about it, you can kind of say, hey, what can I do to help instead, so it kind of provides that education, so you feel more prepared for that conversation?
What type of approach should people take, if they aren't sure if they do want to check in with somebody, but I think that maybe some of the barriers people might have could could include feeling that they might offend somebody, or perhaps feeling that they might be setting themselves up for something they're not prepared to deal with, like the severity of an issue.
That's one of the main reasons I think that people don't necessarily start those conversations, because they are more concerned about what to say, I would first encourage people to go to like a Mental Health First Aid training or things, because that's really what helps you feel more confident when you have those conversations. But I think the other thing, if you're just kind of wondering, is really trying to come across as really asking, you know, are you okay, really watching kind of more of that judgmental, you know, maybe trying to fix the situation for somebody versus just listening to them, we talk a lot in the training about, sometimes when it comes to mental health issues, people kind of want to just fix the situation, or they don't understand what the person is coming from. So they just try to give advice, versus actually maybe just doing more listening, and doing more trying to understand where that person is coming from. So I think part of it is maybe not getting in too deep to something that you're not as comfortable with or knowing when to maybe hand off to somebody else. That's something that we go over in the course, very much so. But I think the first thing is maybe just encouraging that connection, just asking people if they're okay, providing a listening ear, those are things that can go a really long way when it comes to somebody who might be struggling.
Once you do initiate some of the conversations with folks that might be struggling, is there in the training suggested pathways that people should take, if they feel that somebody does need a greater level of help? It's great to have a lending year, it's great to listen to somebody's problems, great to know somebody out there, you know that there's somebody who cares, right? That's a big thing. That's probably the biggest part. But you do get two points where especially there's a lot of training we go through here in the academic environment, of how we deal with students. If there is something we have to keep your ears out for the need to let somebody know if this person might be in, in more of a crisis situation here at the college. Well, you know, I know we have processes for that. But in general, as you teach people, what do you say to them about? Well, if you think that somebody might be, for instance, in danger of self harm, what do you do? You're not out of your depth, but you can still help?
Absolutely. And that's a great as probably one of the first questions needed during the training people start asking is, how do I hand that off? What do I do? One thing I love about mental health first aid, is it lets you discuss community resources. So it is an evidence based training, which means it is trained to the same all throughout the nation in the world, actually. But what's nice is it leaves us the opportunity for your area to make sure that you actually go through the steps and what
Do you do especially like in the suicide section? It'll say, what are the phone numbers that you call and I actually make a point, just like you said here, where I say, you know, sometimes in your professional life, you might have a process or a procedure for, you know, what do you do if somebody says, you know, this, or somebody, you know, says something that makes you feel really concerned, you know, for a risk level, you know, if someone, but at home, you may not know, you know, if I always tell people, you know, if you have someone that comes to you and says, you know, I'm having thoughts of suicide, do you know, some different numbers that you could call? Or do you know, the questions to ask, I love that, we go over that. And there because we not only give you the questions to ask and how to ask them, but then we also will provide you with the community resources that you would need, in order to understand what that would look like, you know, if it got to there. So that kind of helps take away think some of the fear of Okay, what if somebody says, yes, they are suicidal, and they're having, you know, thoughts, and a plan of what they would do, I don't know what to do next, we want people to feel more confident on what to do next. And then that also helps the person that sharing that with them see that they actually know some of the resources and that there are options out there for them, which is even more important. So that is definitely something that we go over,
there probably are a lot of situations where the training helps prepare you for something that you might not have initially thought of as a mental health situation, what are the types of things that people can be more aware of, that they might just think of as some other kind of behavior, but it could be a sign or two, that somebody could use a little bit of help? Sure.
One thing that we tried to do is kind of explain a little bit more, what it's like, it's one of the few areas where it's very much on a continuum, you know, all of us struggle at some point in time with some types of symptoms, you know, with your mental wellness or mental health, especially, let's say if you had somebody pass away, you might be more sad, you know, then you have an for and then there's some other types of issues that people can have. So on that continuum, there's mild issues, moderate and severe. And people kind of go back and forth between those. And so like you said, sometimes people can have mild symptoms, and really, you don't see you know, a lot of those or they don't talk about them, as much, I would say, coming out of the pandemic, we're talking a lot more about mental health, I think people are feeling more comfortable kind of sharing, hey, you know, what, I do have some symptoms of anxiety, or I do worry, probably more than I would want to worry. So I feel like those conversations are happening more often. But one thing that we discussed in the training is looking for both symptoms, you know, that you might see, but signs, what can you look for that somebody may have, that would tell you that they're struggling a little bit more, sometimes people feel like mental health is just you can't see it, you know, there's really nothing that you do, somebody just has to tell you? Well, now there's signs that you can have to you know, somebody might be isolating more often than they were before, somebody might be crying more often than they were before or getting to a point where they're more irritable than they were not enjoying activities that they did before. You know, if you start to have some of these, it might help to spark a conversation of, you know, hey, how have things been going lately? And is there anything I can do to help? You know, with some stuff? So I think what's good, you know, is that I think that we are having more and more of these discussions. But I think it's important that people are just paying attention to each other, oftentimes, we can be so in our own world of kind of different things. And we're kind of a society still of, you know, oh, you're having a tough day today. It'll be fine. You know, you'll be better tomorrow, it'll be fine. But really, what we want to do is be careful, you know, of just assuming that because for some people, this might be day five of not feeling well, or day 14 of it. And so I'm not making those assumptions, but instead trying to hear more about how somebody is doing or what they might be struggling with. I know that you have a couple of different courses that are offered for Mental Health First Aid, what are some of the differences that you see in those courses? Yeah, so one thing that I just really, really enjoy about mental health first aid, it's put out by the National Council. And so it started in 2008, when it came to the United States. And one thing that's very interesting is they take a lot of feedback from people. So originally, it was just kind of what we call the adult course it was just kind of information about mental health. But then they got some feedback that said, Well, I'd really like to know more about youth. And so a few years after that, the youth course came out, which is great. Now, actually, within the last couple of years, we have I believe it's almost eight if not more specific type of courses that you can take. Some are for older adults, that one just came out it is really, really good. If you have anyone that is a caretaker for an older adult, it just focuses a little bit more on that kind of older population. For the youth one, it just focuses on youth, mostly teenagers. They actually just came out with one that's for more elementary school kids. So that's kind of nice. And then we also have some for veterans for rural populations. For first responders. There's ones for higher education for colleges and universities. So that's something I really liked about it is they've kind of now branched out and we do offer some courses that kind of have this more specialized area.
So the two main ones that are offered, though, are still the adult one, or what we call the adult one, which is more of your overview of mental health diagnosis and symptoms, signs, things like that. The youth one is much more focused on less on the actual diagnosis and more on what's typical adolescent development, versus what is not typical, you know, when should I maybe involve a professional or try to do something different with it. So those are the main two that are still offered. But I know in our community, we've been trying to offer more of like the older adult ones, and ones for veterans and things like that, to try to kind of get more information out.
Yeah, I think that's interesting that there is more customized training as people go through different phases in their life. Certainly, the type of mood swings you would see in an adolescent probably would be more concerning if it were happening for like a 30 year old.
A lot of times we spend, we spend that time kind of trying to say, hey, some stuff is just normal for adolescence, it may not seem normal at times, but you know, it doesn't necessarily mean it's going to become, you know, a mental health disorder. But at the same time, there are some things to pay attention to, to make sure maybe it doesn't get worse, because the earlier you can intervene, the earlier you can assist with some symptoms, you know, that start, the better off, you'll be I mean, right now, the statistic is, you know that the median time between symptoms, you know, that people have and then going to get treatment is 10 years. And so if that's, you know, the median time, that can be a lot more severe, I always tell people think about it medically, if you had a medical illness, and you started having signs and symptoms of that, but you waited 10 years to go and get treatment, how much more severe, you know, would that medical illness be no different for mental health, you know, it when you wait that long, it's going to be more severe.
And also, it would seem that there when there are times of a lot of transition, that might create a lot more stressors in folks. So you mentioned a transition in age transition. And if you're going to college, if you're coming out of a year of isolation from COVID. And then you mentioned the older folks that that I think is probably something we don't look at as much how much of a stressor that can be for older folks as they have to transition maybe out of the workplace, out of the degree of mobility and freedom that they have had in the past. So those are probably areas where where you can might see spikes in people's stress. Absolutely, that one just came out the most recent, and I am probably biased, but I love that one the most. Because people don't realize just how much it is difficult, you know, when you have an aging population with so many changes, and they kind of have their own stigma, you know, well, that's just because you're older, or that's just because of this, and you're not necessarily looking at it from maybe there's a lot more going on here. So I really liked that it does put a focus on that and really helps caretakers, you know, or just anyone with aging parents or things, know what they can do and how they can help them be maybe a little bit more understanding, you know, of what somebody might go through. So you're exactly right transitions in general. You know, I think that's the one with the higher education one it focuses more on, it is a transition, you know, to go into college to go to universities, and what are the specific stressors that go on in that it's really, really helpful to look at those things and be more helpful for kind of those populations.
knowing where to refer people if there is a situation, what are some go to places people can find resources, if that is something that they want to have to pass along to people?
So if people want to investigate this type of training, what is available? How do they learn about it? Is this something that organizations need to sign up for? Is there an opportunity for individual training, at least for our area? How can people find out more about this stuff. So right now in our community, we do offer community trainings, they're done in different places, some we do a couple throughout the year at Carle Bromenn. And they usually advertise it in there, like education courses and things in same thing at OSF they do about three years well, so you can find those I believe, like in the healthy lifestyles and different sections, they'll show it in like the courses that they offer. Within other agencies, oftentimes, you can always request to have a training, you know, in your area, no heartland, actually here, just for their staff has done some trainings that they requested. For an order to get that to happen, we do have an area within the health department, you can contact the health department and ask to see if you can learn more about mental health first aid trainings, and then you'll get sent to the kind of area in which we will schedule some of those trainings for people. But we usually also encourage people to look for the community trainings that we have, we add more and more to the calendar as we get more people interested in that. So right now, it's mostly at the hospital settings that you can find it the easiest, or you mentioned earlier,
Absolutely. So it kind of is a little bit easier as our state has actually recently moved towards one kind of centralized number to call. So right now we have moved into being what we call a 988 state. So if you dial 988 In a behavioral health crisis, you will get to a trained counselor who would be able to point you in the direction of maybe answering some questions you might
I have or what are the different options? What are the resources we have in the area, we also have here in town path 211, that's been around for a very long time. And they still, you know, are able to provide resources and things. But some people find it a little bit more catchy to remember the 988 phone number that's kind of taken over, or things like the National Suicide Hotline, it was a lot of different numbers. And now it kind of gives you one one quick number to remember. So I would really start with 988. I think that's the easiest way to kind of get to hey, you know, I would really have some questions, I want to be pointed a direction or I just need support. It's 24/7. So you can call anytime you want. And you will have somebody that is able to just either provide that support or answer those questions on the other end of the phone.
Well, Megan, thank so much for joining us today and talking about mental health first aid and some of the projects that you have going on to educate people here at Heartland Community College in in the community. Thank you so much. I appreciate you having me.
Meghan Moser is a crisis program manager at McLean County Center for Human Services, and she also teaches mental health first aid courses. If you are interested in other interviews about mental health or other topics, subscribe to random acts of knowledge on Apple podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you found this one. Thanks for listening
