Strengthening Support for Youth in the Community

With mental health challenges on the rise across the region, Meridian Health Services invested in professional development of sixteen staff members to offer Mental Health First Aid Training to the community. Youth Mental Health First Aid is a public education program that focuses on unique risk factors and warning signs of mental health problems in adolescents specifically. The program builds understanding of the importance of early intervention and teaches individuals how to help an adolescent in crisis or experiencing a mental health challenge.

Project Leadership leads the Comprehensive Counseling Coalition, a first-of-its-kind countywide collaborative effort to build a comprehensive counseling system for the more than 12,000 K-12 students in Delaware County. As part of this effort, Project Leadership is creating a transition plan for the county related to social-emotional learning. Recently, counselors have expressed concern that trauma, anxiety, and depression will be more prevalent in students when they return to school because of isolation due to the pandemic. The Youth Mental Health First Aid Training program is appealing as a tool for schools to manage student mental health concerns.

The Community Foundation, in partnership with Ball Brothers Foundation, Meridian Health Services, and Project Leadership, will bring Youth Mental Health First Aid Training to 34 school buildings serving our community’s youth in a unique pilot program. Meridian Health Services will provide training and Project Leadership will add the training to the social-emotional learning plan and encourage school participation for a designated number of educators per school. Training starts this month and will commence by the end of 2020.