Hoping to avert tragedies like the Virginia Tech shooting, Maryland officials are teaching a first aid approach to mental health.
The new program, which begins this week in Towson, is expected to show participants how to see a person with a grave mental illness the same way as someone with a serious physical injury.
The initial training will be for about 20 mental health professionals who will take the training to colleges, universities, workplaces and community organizations.
Brian Hepburn, Maryland?s director of mental health, compared the need for mental health first aid to the need for basic first aid and cardiopulmonary resuscitation.
As opposed to the response to a physical medical emergency, he said, the response to a person who is socially disturbed has been avoidance.
“The less avoiding there is, the more likely we?ll avoid the tragic results, the more we can work in the direction of treatment,” he said.
About 25 percent of Americans ages 18 and older, or 57.7 million people, suffer from a mental disorder, according to the Bethesda-based National Institute of Mental Health.
Six percent of the country, or one in 17 people, suffers from a serious mental illness.
Sharon Friedman, who directs the Mental Health Association of Montgomery County and will attend the training, said, “This is a great model for prevention because it looks at the issue from a communitywide perspective.”
Mental health advocacy groups have rated Maryland among the top five states for dealing with mental health issues, Hepburn said.
The funding for the training comes from a $13 million federal grant awarded to Maryland and six other states by the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration.
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Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration: www.samhsa.gov
