Mental Health Awareness Trainings

Mental Health First Aid is a course that teaches you how to identify, understand and respond to signs of mental illnesses and substance use disorders. This training focuses on ages 18 and older. The training gives you the skills you need to reach out and provide initial help and support to someone who may be developing a mental health or substance use. Topics covered in this training include anxiety, depression, psychosis, and addictions.

Youth Mental Health First Aid (YMHFA) is directed towards identifying the signs and symptoms of mental illness in adolescents. Adolescence and early adulthood are developmental stages that are associated with greater risk of the onset of mental illness. Help-seeking behaviors among this group are often lower compared to adults.

Preliminary evidence suggests the effectiveness of delivering YMHFA in school settings and finds YMHFA associated with improvements in trainees being able to recognize when to assess for suicidality, how to listen non-judgmentally, and refer young people to professional help.

QPR stands for Question, Persuade and Refer. QPR teaches individuals to recognize warning signs, question suicidal intent, listen to problems, and refer to appropriate professional health.

Furthermore, a recent study found positive long-term effects in QPR training related to knowledge, self-efficacy, and help-giving behaviors.

Older adults have high rates of late-onset mental health challenges, like anxiety and depression, and low rates of identification and treatment. Mental Health First Aid is a course that teaches you how to identify, understand and respond to signs of mental illnesses and substance use disorders. The training gives you the skills you need to reach out and provide initial help and support to someone who may be developing a mental health or substance use. This course will give you the confidence to have the conversations that will allow older adults to live as comfortably as possible.

Thank you for signing up for a Mental Health First Aid course.
Below is a breakdown of what you can expect regarding this training:

Before the date of the training

• Set up an account on the MHFA Connect platform (connect.mentalhealthfirstaid.org).
  This is where you will take your final exam after the course and have access to the certificate.
• You should have received an email from MHFA Teams with a link to sign in. Please reach out to abrackenridge@placesforpeople.org if you have any questions.
• About 1 business day after you set up your account, you will be able to view your course on Connect.
• Complete the first 9 modules, which include a welcome module, a pre-evaluation survey and an opinions quiz.
• This should take you about 2 hours total. (*If your pre-work is incomplete, we will not be able to include you in the in-person part of the training next week. It is a requirement that 100% of the prework is completed before you can attend the in-person part of the training. )
• Answer an Illume pre-training survey.On the day of the training
• Attend the full day of training.
• Parking Information will be emailed the day before or day of the training.After the training
• Complete Modules 11-13 on MHFA Connect.
• This includes the Final Exam & Post-Evaluation questions.
• You can download your certificate straight from Connect.
• Answer a post-training & feedback survey.
  This is the email you signed up for the course with. If you prefer to receive information regarding this training through another email, let us know.

If you have trouble accessing MHFA Connect or accessing the internet in general, let us know at least a few days in advance and we will do our best to work with you.

If you can no longer attend this training, please email so we know not to continue emailing you regarding this course.

Mental Health First Aid trainings are full-day trainings.

Both Adult Mental Health First Aid trainings & Youth Mental Health First Aid trainings have 2 hours of self-paced pre-work, that must be completed at least one business day prior to the training. If you did not complete your pre-work, you will not be able to join the Mental Health First Aid training.

Instructor-led sessions for Mental Health First Aid is 8-hours in total, including breaks in the morning and afternoon, as well as a 1-hour break for lunch. This training starts at 9:00 am Central Standard Time.

Our Suicide Prevention Training, QPR, is 2 hours long.

For both Adult Mental Health First Aid and Youth Mental Health First Aid there is pre-work.

Pre-work covers roughly 2 hours of video, readings and knowledge checks. This will help prepare learners for their course. This does not need to be completed in one sitting. You can complete the pre-work in multiple sittings.

There are 9 Modules in MHFA Connect system that you will need to complete before the training. Once the pre-work is completed, it will show up on your Connect Course Bar as 69% completed.

In order to receive credit for Mental Health First Aid training, you must have missed less than 30 minutes of the total training/instructor-led session.

Also note, Mental Health First Aid learners will get breaks throughout the day, including a 1-hour break for lunch.

No, for virtual Mental Health First Aid trainings, learners must each be logged into individual devices due to activities such as breakout groups, etc.

We have both in-person versions and virtual versions of Adult Mental Health First Aid and Youth Mental Health First Aid.

The virtual versions of the trainings are designed to be as interactive as the in-person training. The virtual training needs participants to have camera, audio and will ask participants to be interactive in their chats throughout the training. This is because this training includes small group discussions, large class discussions, and screen shares that ask for annotations/comments.
Consistent communication and individual participation from learners are important and required.