While most people would immediately help a person having a heart attack, be it by calling 911 or for those trained in it, through attempting CPR, they often, unfortunately, tend to pull back when faced with clear signs of a mental or emotional crisis in someone they know.

In an effort to change that, the Coatesville area non-profit organization, Brandywine Health Foundation, launched the Youth Mental Health First Aid program in August 2014. The program is a public-private partnership with the goal of considerably improving the behavioral health of children and teens in the Coatesville Area School District.

The training uses information and knowledge to remove the stigma that so often surrounds mental health issues, by teaching individuals on how to properly assess mental health concerns and help people to take the necessary steps to seek treatment when they need it.  

“With one in four Americans experiencing a mental health or addiction disorder each year, we would love to see this training become as common as CPR training” commented Dana Heiman, Senior Vice President of Brandywine Health Foundation, who also manages the YMHFA program in Coatesville.

People who have already completed the YMHFA program met last Wednesday to celebrate their early success stories on how the training gave them the appropriate tools to help a young individual in crises. This valuable training has led to several lives being saved as the trainees were able to intervene in time and prevent a young person from committing suicide.

“YMHFA has helped me speak to my friends and help them understand more about the importance of Mental Health.  Together, we helped a friend seek her own professional help to deal with her stress and anxiety,” said one of the participants.

Out of the close to one thousand certified Mental Health First Aiders in Chester County, 446 have been certified through the Brandywine Health Foundation’s Youth Mental Health First Aid program.

The foundation has already held 23 free 8 hour training sessions in Youth Mental Health First Aid since the inception of the program, with participants including employees of the Coatesville Area School District, Coatesville residents and employees, and a number of parents, grandparents, guardians and high school students, among others.

The goal of the four-year pilot is to successfully train upward of 1,000 community members and Coatesville Area School District employees.