Grant Expands FL Mental Health Program

Oct. 01 -- BOYNTON BEACH, FL -- The county’s substance awareness coalition has been awarded a $125,000 federal grant to expand a program to identify and assist individuals struggling with mental health, and prevent substance abuse.

U.S. Rep. Lois Frankel, D-West Palm Beach, announced the grant for Mental Health First Aid courses for parents, first responders and teachers at the Palm Beach County Substance Awareness Coalition in Boynton Beach on Monday. She said the training, which is taught locally and nationwide, could reduce the number of overdoses the county is seeing from the opioid epidemic by getting help to those before they turn to drugs.

“You want to try to spot it ahead of time,” she said.

As of the end of July, the county had documented 224 deaths due to opioid-related overdoses, according to the county’s medical examiner.

The overdoses have a ripple effect on the users’ loved ones and friends, but also on the first responders, Frankel said.

“In this line of work we’re faced with death on a daily basis but because of this epidemic it’s just become so frequent that it’s taken a toll on us emotionally, physically, we’re losing sleep,” said Ryan Stacey, the legislative vice president for the West Palm Beach Association of Firefighters. “So it’s good that we’re addressing it before we get to that point”.

Frankel said the training could also put a dent on gun violence.

“We’ve seen with gun violence how much of that has been related to mental health,” she said.

The money, which came from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, is to be spent over three years. The coalition plans to train more than 1,500 adults to help children and teens, veterans, and also educate the Hispanic and Haitian communities.

“Mental health first aid is kind of like CPR for mental health,” said Alexa Lee, the coalition’s director of programs. “It’s going to connect people who are struggling with an issue hopefully early on at Stage 1 because we want to get to them before they’re Stage 4 before it gets to the point where it’s overwhelming.”

The training is between six and eight hours and is designed to help people identify someone in a mental health crisis, work with them and set them up with resources to help them recover. The coalition is partnering with the Palm Beach County School District and law enforcement agencies.

The school district previously was awarded this grant and trained more than 1,300 teachers and personnel in youth mental health first aid, said Kevin McCormick, the district’s director of exceptional student education.

“We’re a massive county and a large school district so that is a very small percentage of people we could train within our community to truly make an impact on one identifying signs and symptoms of mental health, but most importantly destigmatizing what mental health is right now in our community,” McCormick said.

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