On Tuesday Sept. 19, a mental health first aid class will be offered at the Holiday Inn Express in Chehalis.
Conducted by the national nonprofit organization Mental Health First Aid, the class will be free of charge because of a grant from the Providence Foundation. Normally, the eight-hour class costs $170.
During the class, people will learn how to identify the signs and symptoms of anxiety, depression and other forms of mental illness, course instructor Brooke Amyx said. They will learn how to address some cases in the short term until the person either gets help or decides they do not need it.
“It is really teaching people how to offer treatment instead of pushing it,” Amyx said. “We are just now learning how to speak about mental illness in a positive way.”
The information presented is based on evidence, Amyx said. The program was started by Australians Betty Kitchener, a specialized nurse focused on education, and Anthony Jorm, a mental health literacy professor, in 2001. Several other countries have started teaching the program with the United States joining the fold in the late 2000s.
The class focuses on teaching how to assess the risk of physical harm, listen non-judgmentally, give information and reassurance, encourage appropriate professional help, and encourage self help and other support strategies — which forms the acronym ALGEE.
Although the stigma surrounding mental illnesses has decreased over the last decade, it still exists and people are unprepared when they encounter a person suffering from mental illness, Amyx said. One in five Americans will have mental health issues at some point in their life.
“Somebody is far more likely to run across someone who is having mental health issues than a heart attack,” Amyx said.
People with mental illnesses can live better through proper treatment, she said. Also, the majority of people who have mental illness are not violent, Amyx added. In fact, those with mental illnesses are more likely to be victims of violence than perpetrators, she said.
United Way of Lewis County is one of the partners bringing the free class to Chehalis.
"We’re focused on lifting families out of poverty and the mental health first aid class is an evidence-based program which focuses on reducing the stigma of mental health and increasing community mental health knowledge,” Executive Director Debbie Campbell said in a statement to The Chronicle. “It is United Way's role to partner with local schools, governments, health agencies and other community-based nonprofits to provide resources to our community, and the more education our service providers have on mental health knowledge, the more they can get to the root of the problem."
