Thursday, April 3, 2025
4/3/2025
Mental Health Training for the Manchester Community (MH4MC) - The Mental Health Center of Greater Manchester’s (MHCGM) Mental Health Training for the Manchester Community (MH4MC) provides specific mental health awareness and de-escalation trainings to college/university staff, law enforcement officers (LEO), human services providers, direct care providers, and refugee services providers, working the greater Manchester community. The greater Manchester area is defined as Candia, Manchester, Hooksett, Auburn, Londonderry, Goffstown, Bedford and New Boston, New Hampshire. This area is the urban center of New Hampshire and has a population of about 207,000. MH4MC through its designated committed partners will train 975 people in Mental Health First Aid (MHFA), and 100 LEOs in Crisis Intervention Team training (CIT) under this grant. CIT is delivered yearly to 20 police officers in the greater Manchester community so that over the course of the grant 100 police officers are trained. CIT is appropriate for the police officers as it was designed specifically for this population and according to a recently published article in the Journal of the American Academy of Psychiatry and the Law, CIT has positive officer level outcomes including self-perception of a reduction in the use of force and incidents of pre-booking diversion from jail to mental health treatment thus improving the response to people in crisis. Mental Health First Aid is delivered to 165 individuals in year 1, 180 in year 2, 195 in year 3 and 210 in year 5 and 225 in year 6. Research on MHFA has found that people trained in the program have an increase knowledge of mental illness and addiction including the signs and symptoms, are able to identify and help a person in crisis engage with community resources, have better mental wellness themselves and have more confidence in helping a person in crisis. As this training will be targeted to train relevant staff across a wide swath of the Manchester community population the idea that the person trained in MHFA will be able to recognize signs and symptoms, have the community resource knowledge to direct someone in need, and support them through that process until people with higher level of training engage with the person in crisis is a game changer for our community.
HHS’ Tracking Accountability in Government Grants System (TAGGS) website provides access to detailed descriptions of grants, loans, aggregated direct payments and other types of financial assistance awarded by the HHS Operating Divisions (OPDIVs) and the Office of the Secretary Staff Divisions (STAFFDIVs).