Public encouraged to learn first aid for mental health

July 11--You suspect that a loved one is cutting.

A friend confides to you his suicide plan.

Your teen is writing songs about death.

What, if anything, do you do?

Just like there is first aid for physical health, there is first aid for mental health. And experts in the field are encouraging police, teachers, retailers and others to learn how to apply it.

Alicia Betts-Garrett, spokeswoman for Grand Prairie Services (GPS) in Chicago Heights, said the eight-hour first aid for mental health certificate program is aimed at increasing awareness of the signs and symptoms of various mental health disorders.

"Depression is up, anxiety is up, because of the recession and other things," Betts-Garrett said. "It's good for people to know what these disorders are and how to recognize their symptoms."

Workshop at several sites

GPS is a not-for-profit behavioral healthcare provider that serves Bloom, Bremen, Rich and Thornton townships. It offers the first aid program at various locations, including Tinley Park, Chicago and Oak Brook. Workshop participants also receive two resource manuals that explain mental health conditions, such as psychosis and depression. Both books, one an overview of mental health first aid and the other written for adults who are assisting young people, offer lists of experts, organizations and support groups.

An abbreviated workshop was held recently at the Palos Heights Public Library for members of the League of Women Voters of the Palos-Orland Area.

Barbara Pasquinelli, president of the group, said, "I'm a retired educator and I know often the very first people who are there in some sort of a crisis or meltdown are teachers, social workers, people without any training whatsoever."

Antonia Wister, a retired teacher, said, "Since they closed all of the mental health centers, including the Tinley Park Mental Health Center, there's nothing. Where are these people now? They're on the street or they're in jail. If there's anything we can do to help, we should."

Adrien Teverbaugh, drop-in center coordinator for GPS, opened the program with a series of first-person videos that describe conditions such as anxiety and obsessive-compulsive disorder in great detail.

Anxiety disorders and depression are on the rise this country, Teverbaugh said.

"We just had that horrible shooting in Florida. People are depressed. The news is depressing. Every day, somebody gets shot. It's depressing," he said.

People who suffer from mental illness, he said, can become overwhelmed by such conditions.

Knowing and acting

The library presentation was designed to give anyone interested an overview of what the longer program entails. During it, attendees learned about the symptoms of depression and anxiety and how to distinguish non-fatal suicide attempts from fatal ones.

"Knowing symptoms is very important," Teverbaugh said. "So is knowing the five-step action plan."

Regardless of the disorder, Teverbaugh said, there is a standard protocol for handling a situation that is or has the potential to become threatening.

Teverbaugh explained that plan, which goes by the acronym ALGEE (Assess risk of suicide harm; Listen non-judgmentally; Give information and resources; Encourage professional help; Encourage self-help).

Warning signs, he said, include threats to hurt oneself or others, seeking access or means to be harmful, feeling hopeless and acting recklessly.

But, Teverbaugh added, you must be able to assess each situation on its own merit. For example, he said, it's normal for a teen to act recklessly but not for an adult.

"If an 8-year-old takes a whole bottle of baby aspirin, that's a suicide attempt," he said. "If an adult does it, well, he just likes the taste of baby aspirin because an adult probably knows it's not going to kill him."

Nevertheless, he said, non-suicidal self-injury is a cry for help.

Cutting

A disturbing form of such injury is cutting, he said.

"They have so much pain, so much agony inside that the (physical) pain of cutting relieves it. Some people's cuts are visible. They're seeking help. The people who hide it really feel it's working for them. If you see or know somebody is cutting, should you tell them to stop? The answer is no. You should try to seek help for them but don't tell them to stop because cutting may be stopping them from committing suicide. Cutting may be helping them survive," Teverbaugh said.

But always, he added, you should seek professional help for the individual.

Likewise for the friend or relative who tells you a detailed plan on how he's going to end his life, or for the teen who is obsessed with death, Teverbaugh said.

Rule of thumb, he said: "When anybody talks about suicide, take it seriously. I don't care who it is, take it seriously. Even little kids. Because kids today have grown up killing hundreds of people on video games. They are desensitized to death because they're doing it every day."

Teverbaugh said in a crisis situation, it's often helpful to remind the person suffering that, "No matter what situation you're in, you're just a phone call away from that problem being solved. A phone call away from things turning around."

Sgt. Troy Siewert, head of the Crisis Intervention Team for the Orland Park Police Department, said, "First aid for mental health is kind of like first aid for medical emergencies. You're not a doctor, you're not a surgeon. But you can give first aid and then send the person on to the people who know how to treat the problem."

Several members of the Orland Park force attended one of the emergency training programs in January.

Siewert said the need is substantial.

"We're getting calls weekly, if not daily, regarding mental health issues," he said.

The conditions run the gamut from schizophrenia to depression.

Mental health centers closed

In that regard, he added, Orland Park is indicative of what is happening across the country.

He said the Tinley Park Mental Health Center's closing in 2012 was part of a push by the government to abolish central locations and take some of the money saved and push it back out into the community for outreach care.

"Well they ended up closing the facilities but a lot of that money never made it back out to the treatment facilities," he said. "So now you have people in need of treatment but funding isn't there for them to get it."

The village's 15-member Crisis Intervention Team went into effect in February of last year. The 40-hour, state-certified training program goes into greater detail on detecting signs and symptoms.

"The program is designed to build awareness and empathy," he said.

"Any time there is a call or dispatch that appears or is known to be mental health-related, a crisis intervention team officer is dispatched," Siewert said. "They will assess the situation, de-escalate if necessary and then they will speak to both the person believed to have the crisis as well as any family members, friends or co-workers who are there."

The goal, he said, is to get a history and get people the resources they need, whether that is a referral to a counselor, an intervention during which a crisis counselor comes out to the scene, a voluntary or involuntary committal, or an arrest.

In addition, he said, by getting people the help they need, the department hopes this kind of approach will reduce the number of calls for service to the police department.

"If we spend a little bit more time on the front side, in the end it works out better for everybody," he said.

First Aid for Mental Health workshops are ongoing. The cost is $45 per person (groups of five or more pay $35 per person). Classes will be held July 14 and Sept. 15 at Grand Prairie Services'Tinley Park location at 17746 Oak Park Ave. To find additional locations and dates, go to www.mentalhealthfirstaid.org

dvickroy@tribpub.com

How common is mental illness?

According to the Anxiety and Depression Association of America, some 6 million people suffer from panic disorder, while 19 million have some kind of phobia. In addition, 2.2 million people have obsessive-compulsive disorder and 7.7 million suffer some kind of post-traumatic stress, it states. Major Depressive Disorder, which affects approximately 14.8 million American adults, is the leading cause of disability in the U.S. for ages 15 to 44.3, the association says.

For more information, go to www.adaa.org

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