Mental Health Awareness Training Project - The Mental Health Awareness Training Project’s focus is to provide evidence-based education and training through various forms to address mental health stigma, crisis intervention, and coordination of services to all individuals living or working in Herkimer County. School districts, first responders, human service and social service organizations, veterans and active duty military and their families are specific populations of focus to participate in these training and awareness efforts. This project will also allow for the creation of a Crisis Intervention Team that will be responsible for implementing a crisis response protocol and provide crisis intervention training specifically for first responders. By providing Mental Health First Aid Training, Crisis Intervention Training following the Memphis Model, Lions Quest Skills for Action for youth and Lifeline Trilogy, we look to increase awareness of mental health needs, reduce stigma and provide individuals with the tools needed to identify, address, and de-escalate mental health crisis and non-crisis situations. Through our coordinated community efforts, we look to train 825 individuals, including youth, over the 5-year project period. We will work to increase referrals to treatment and other mental health services by 15% over the lifetime of the project by providing a direct service coordination of care approach that will provide individuals and their families with help navigating mental health services, which will include accessing appropriate services, scheduling appointments and removing potential barriers. To help with this process the creation of an online Herkimer County mental health service resource database, updated every 3 months, will ensure community members have easy access to the most up to date mental health services. Resource and materials will also be provided to individuals through outreach, community events and social media.
