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Students were invited to join the Office of Wellness Education to complete Mental Health First Aid Training. A program compared to CPR or First Aid, but instead of focusing on physical health, this training focuses on what to do during mental health challenges and crises.
“The purpose is to train people to recognize the signs of and symptoms of a mental health challenge or crisis then learn skills to intervene,” said Dory Quin an associate professor in social work and instructor of the course.
The course had a blended model, those attending the course first did around two hours of online work before the class, then the training was split into two separate days.
“This is day two of our mental health first aide training. It is a nationwide training course that has been around for a while. I’m getting my master’s in social work so it’s very interesting to me, to be trained on mental health matters. I think a lot of the people who are taking this course have interests due to either (their) degrees or personal life experiences are interested in this,” Mona Jurshak, graduate assistant for campus advocacy and wellness education.
Quinn has taught the course to different groups of students on campus. She has taught the course to students in her classes then also the current Resident Assistants during their summer training.
“Excellent, I participated last week, and the content is incredibly useful, there’s lots of interaction so it’s not just a boring lecture. I think that all the information is applicable to life. So, I think they’ll be able to take what they learn out into the world once they leave,” said Megan Johnson, advocacy coordinator and director of wellness education.
Johnson has planned other events throughout the school year as well, ranging from events about consent to the mental health course offered here.
“At the beginning of the school year I had a survey open to student body what they thought the focus or the primary goals of the office of wellness education should be, and overwhelmingly, mental health was the top answer. So that is one reason why when I heard about this mental health first-aid training that Dr. Quinn does, I wanted to get involved. Because students reported that mental health is the number one priority that they would like us to address,” said Johnson.
The event was open to all students via Gorilla Engage.
“The opportunity was open to any students, I really tried to get registered student org presidents to consider taking it because they have so much interaction with students, but it was open to everybody. We had limited seating, so 15 students were able to take it,” Johnson said.
Johnson is also the advisor for Students for Violence Prevention. They are also hosting a variety of events through the rest of the semester.
“Next week SVP has their domestic violence panel followed by some self-defense training. Looking to the future, we’re also going to have a couple of study sessions during dead week where we’ll have some snacks, some quiet music, and some timed breaks for stretches to help students during that dead week crunch for finals,” said Johnson.
On Oct. 26 the Office of Wellness Education will be hosting a Peer Health Meeting from 2:00 p.m. to 3:00 p.m. in Kansas 2 of the Overman Student Center. More information can be found on Gorilla Engage concerning SVP and the Office of Wellness Educations upcoming events.
