Mental Health First Aid! Have you heard of this before?

Parneeta Singh
Aug 1, 2018
3 min read

As I have said earlier physical illnesses are more visible and evident as compared to mental ailments. To make it ‘easier’ and more apparent for people to understand what a mental health ailment feels/looks like, the World Health Organization (WHO) recently published a list to show the severity of a mental health ailment as if it were a physical disease. Here it is from the least severe to the most:

Lower back pain
Epilepsy = Mild Depression
Asthma = Moderate Depression
Vision Loss
Emphysema = Severe PTSD
Disseminated Breast Cancer = Severe Depression
Severe Dementia/ Severe Schizophrenia

This list gives you an idea of how disabling it is to have a mental health illness and how it impacts one’s life and ability to function. I can tell you from personal experience it’s not a fun ride. Can you believe severe depression is equivalent to not just breast cancer but widespread breast cancer? How scary is that? Severe dementia and schizophrenia do not even have a physical ailment equivalent. If that doesn’t make your skin crawl, then I don’t know what will!

So what can the community do about it?

A while back when I was working on my website, I came across an article that mentioned a training program called Mental Health First Aid that was being introduced in the United States. I was thrilled! I thought it was about time we had one of these for Mental Health like we do for Physical Health.

So what is the rationale behind Mental Health First Aid? As we know, scores of individuals are afflicted with mental health ailments. However the stigma around mental health still exists. This acts as a huge hurdle when other members of the society (who do not have said issues) want to help afflicted individuals. These members do not know how to help afflicted individuals when they are in crisis, especially when the affected individuals do not speak out in the fear of being shamed and stigmatized. In order to recognize and help individuals suffering from mental health issues, Betty Kitchener AM and her husband Professor Anthony Jorm developed the Mental Health First Aid Program in the year 2000 in Australia. Kitchener has facilitated the spread of the program across Australia and to more than 20 other countries since then. By 2016 1.7 million people had been trained in Mental Health First Aid worldwide.

Mental Health First Aid (MHFA) is a training program that teaches the public how to recognize and help individuals who may be developing a mental health problem, experiencing a worsening of an existing issue or may be in a crisis. Similar to traditional first aid, Mental Health First Aid does not teach people how to treat or diagnose mental health ailments. The training focuses on teaching members how to offer initial support until appropriate professional help is received or until the crisis resolves. While first aid for physical health crises is a familiar notion, mental health problems are generally not incorporated under the same umbrella. That’s why this program is so needed and it’s about time that everyone is educated and informed about it so that we can build a stronger and more peaceful community.

I just completed the course myself and am officially a Mental Health First Aider! It was an amazing experience to say the least. I was in a room full of people from different walks of life who wanted to learn how to help family members and other individuals with mental ailments. It was unbelievable that so many people were and are willing to learn and help others in this field.

I encourage all of you to attend this course. Believe me it is an eye opener and it will change your perspective about mental health. Just to give you a preview, the course follows an algorithm called ALGEE as depicted in the image below: