Mendocino County Office of Education's (MCOE) Community Mental Wellness project will promote mental wellness in MCOE’s target population, K -12 students, by providing Mental Health First Aid (MHFA) trainings to teachers, administrators, school counselors, school nurses and other personnel on school sites. MHFA trainings will also be made available to community youth-serving agencies as well as to the general community. Parents, foster parents, health care practitioners, emergency responders, church leaders and members, and anyone having close contact with youth can benefit from this training. This evidence-based training will provide resources, tools and strategies for early identification, intervention and prevention of mental health issues in our youth, and to reduce stigma. MCOE aims to better equip our community, as a whole, to understand, assist and support youth struggling with mental health issues.
MCOE will also make MHFA trainings accessible to our neighboring counties of Lake, Sonoma, Humboldt and Del Norte counties. Mental Health First Aid instructors are more scarce in these regions with only 2 instructors in Lake County, 4 in Sonoma, 2 in Humboldt, and 0 in Del Norte. We will promote and invite our community and school partners from these counties to MCOE’s MHFA trainings. We have had collaborative partnerships with these counties in various sectors from education to youth organizations. In addition, many of our youth and students may transfer or attend schools, and transition regularly to different family homes across county lines. Expanding mental health awareness and literacy beyond Mendocino County’s borders, in areas where there are many rural, remote and isolated communities, will build and strengthen our existing partnerships with neighboring counties, and in turn strengthen the overall mental health supports for all students and youth.
In 2020, due to Covid-19 and school shut-downs, MCOE has been delivering MHFA trainings virtually. When schools and MCOE offices re-open, we will be able to offer MHFA trainings in a variety of formats: in-person, blended, and virtual, at the MCOE campuses, and also to our remote locations by taking the training on the road. The goal of the MCOE Community Mental Health Wellness Project is to train a minimum of 275 school staff and community members a year, 1,375 in the course of the 5-year grant period in Mental Health First Aid; expand MCOE’s capacity to provide increased MHFA trainings by increasing the number of staff who are certified Mental Health First Aid instructors; train at least 2 - 4 additional staff as Mental Health First Aid instructors to add to our current stable of 8 MHFA instructors; provide access to MHFA trainings and expand mental health literacy and awareness in more remote communities of Mendocino County and beyond; address ethnic disparities through outreach to our underserved Native American and Latino communities; increase the schools’ and general community’s knowledge and awareness of signs and symptoms of mental illness; and increase MCOE’s organizational capacity as a community and school district resource for mental health awareness and information.
