Evaluation of Youth Mental Health First Aid USA: A program to assist young people in psychological distress.

Abstract

Youth Mental Health First Aid USA (YMHFA) is a manualized training program designed to educate members of the public on common emotional problems and psychological disorders among youth and to provide trainees with tools anyone can use to assist young people in psychological distress. The present study used a pre versus post design to assess the ability of social service employees to generate appropriate strategies to use in hypothetical situations featuring a young person in distress, before versus after participation in the 8-hr YMHFA training. Trainee responses demonstrated significant overall improvement (M = 1.32, SD = 0.80 pretraining vs. M = 1.87, SD = 1.1 posttraining, t = 6.6, p < .001) by including four of the five central YMHFA strategies significantly more often after training. Increased confidence in, likelihood of, and comfort with helping a young person in emotional distress or crisis were also reported posttraining compared to pretraining (all p ≤ .001). Results suggest that individuals participating in YMHFA training are better informed regarding when to assess for risk of suicide, listen nonjudgmentally, encourage appropriate professional help, and encourage self-help strategies with young people in psychological distress. (PsycINFO Database Record

Future role aspirations, achievement motivations and perceptions of personal help-seeking among humanitarian aid trainees

“…Mental Health First Aid training has been shown to increase knowledge of mental illness and treatments and provide individuals with appropriate strategies to support others in need (Aakre et al 2016;Jensen et al 2016). Such training in workplace settings has been found to increase individual willingness to provide support to others, a greater likelihood of advising others to seek professional help, and improvement in the mental health of the those who underwent the training themselves (Kitchener and Jorm 2004).…”

Exploring perceived costs and benefits of first aid for youth with depression: a qualitative study of Japanese undergraduates

“…This 14-h program can be conducted as either over two full days or four small sessions, and those instructors registered on the MHFA website [30] teach how to recognize and help young people with mental disorders and facilitate role plays between participants to develop practical skills of helping behavior (for more details, see [25]). An evaluation study of the YMHFA in Australia has demonstrated improvements in knowledge of mental disorders, stigmatizing attitudes, and confidence in offering help [25], and this program has been conducted in the United States [31][32][33]. To improve literacy regarding the worldwide problem of depression among youth, it is hoped that the YMHFA will be used globally in future, as well as the original MHFA that has already been conducted and evaluated in over 22 countries [34], including the United Kingdom [35,36], the United States [37], and Japan [38][39][40].…”

Youth Mental Health First‐Aid: Juvenile Justice Staff Training to Assist Youth with Mental Health Concerns

“…Both include day‐long training and an extensive MHFA manual for future reference. The adult MHFA program focuses on the needs of people 18 and over while Youth Mental Health First Aid (our focus in this evaluation) is designed for adults who interact with youth ages 12‐18 (Aakre, et al ). In YMHFA training, participants learn to distinguish between signs and symptoms of typical adolescent development vs mental health concerns, and they learn how to carry out a 5‐step action plan for how to help distressed young people in both crisis and non‐crisis situations, called ALGEE : A ssess for risk of suicide or harm. L isten nonjudgmentally. G ive reassurance and information. E ncourage appropriate professional help .…”

“…Therefore, the training needed to be applicable whether the youth was in the community or detained. Over the past 10+ years, more than 1 million people have been trained in MHFA (adult and youth versions combined; MHFA, ) in many settings across the U.S. (Hadlaczky et al, ; Aakre et al, ; Lucksted, et al, ). However, it had not previously been used in juvenile justice.…”