The Division of Substance Abuse and Mental Health held a lite version of their mental health first aid training at the Georgetown Public Library today.
It was an hour-long “teaser” of an eight-hour certification process to inform community members on ways they can help someone in a mental health crisis, including a list of resources and crisis responders. Both versions of the training are free for attendees.
Brent Waninger is the director of executive programs for the Grant Administration and Overdose Response Center under Delaware’s Division of Substance Abuse and Mental Health.
The trainings are not a hard process, according to Waninger — he’s not asking people to become counselors or clinicians.
“If you’re gonna build resiliency in a community, you need to empower the community to be self-sufficient and to be able to respond themselves, be able to say, 'yeah, okay, we can step in for the moment until help arrives,'” Waninger said.
The trainings are intended to destigmatize mental health crises, he said.
“The same thing as CPR, we can train a whole lot of people to intervene early on where it can make a difference,” Waninger said. “It’s not putting them in a situation where they’re by themselves and they’re on their own.”
Waninger draws the comparison to CPR training to normalize mental health crises.
Both mental health first aid trainings include a list of resources to use in the event of an emergency, like calling 988, going to the Help is Here website or accessing Delaware’s Hope Line for coaching and support.
He says the Division is aiming to bring these resources to Sussex County, which he considers rural — there are barriers to the level of response and availability of resources in the county.
Information on future lite and full-length trainings can be found on the Division’s website.
