A student's mental outbreak could end in a tragedy, recent school shootings across the country are a testament of that.
Locally, close to 50 first responders and school administrators received training involving children experiencing a mental health crisis.
"If we see that the person is acting different than his normal ways, we could look into it further and stop school violence," San Antonio Independent School District Campus Police Officer, Arturo Silva Jr., told La Prensa.
Additionally, Silva said having different departments involved in the training helps them all be on the same page when it comes to helping a student experiencing a mental outbreak.
The week long training offered eight hours of classroom instruction where they received interactive training with role players pretending to have a mental break down.
The goal of the training was to teach law enforcement and administrators how to deal with children going through a mental illness.
"After they make sure the child is not harming himself or others, we approach them and determine what kind of crisis they're in and how to get them help," Silva added.
As a campus police officer, Silva said he deals with students having a mental crisis maybe once a week.
SAISD Campus Officer Alicia Calderon said she learned valuable lessons through the training.
"We want them to know we're not just a uniform or a badge, we care about them," Calderon said.
San Antonio Fire Department Paramedic, Gabriel Morin also went through the training and told La Prensa it's already made him a better listener.
"You can't stress enough how important it is to listen to people when they're having a bad day, an anxiety event, a depression event or thoughts of suicide," Morin added. "Working as a paramedic we see people all the time who are dealing with these issues and sometimes a lot of it is they just need someone to talk to."
One of the biggest lessons Morin took away from the training is the importance in staying calm.
"You want to speak in a very low and slow voice, because the people you may encounter may be screaming and you want to be able to bring them down to talk to you," the paramedic said. "The whole purpose of the class is to be able to bring the person from a crisis situation to where they're no longer feeling like they're in a crisis."
In the past, Morin took the mental health crisis training for adults and said he was able to apply what he learned not even a week later.
"Its useful training and it definitely applies to what we do," Morin concluded.
By Natalie Bobadilla
mtalie@laprensasa.com