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Behavioral Health and Well Being
Mental Health First Aid
Identify. Understand. Respond. Mental Health First Aid is a skills-based training course that teaches participants about mental health and substance-use issues. Just as CPR helps you assist an individual having a heart attack, Mental Health First Aid helps you assist someone experiencing a mental health or substance use-related challenge. In the Mental Health First Aid course, you learn risk factors and warning signs for mental health and addiction concerns, strategies for how to help someone in both crisis and non-crisis situations, and where to turn for help.
Adult Mental Health First Aid
Mental Health First Aid for Adults teaches people how to recognize signs of mental health or substance use challenges in adults ages 18 and older, how to offer and provide initial help, and how to guide a person toward appropriate care, if necessary. In this highly interactive workshop, participants use scenarios to put the 5-step action plan into practice, in both crisis and non-crisis situations. Topics of discussion include anxiety, depression, psychosis, and addictions.
Contact Katie Stenroos at katelin.stenroos@wisc.edu to discuss options for classes.
Teen Mental Health First Aid
Created by David Coy, School District of Superior Communications/PR Specialist
teen Mental Health First Aid (tMHFA) teaches teens in grades 10-12, or ages 15-18, how to identify, understand and respond to signs of mental health and substance use challenges among their friends and peers.
Extension Douglas & Bayfield Counties are currently offering tMHFA in Bayfield, Superior, and Washburn High Schools. If you’d like to explore the possibility of bringing tMHFA to your High School, contact Katie Stenroos.
Youth Mental Health First Aid Training
Youth Mental Health First Aid is designed to teach parents, family members, caregivers, teachers, school staff, peers, neighbors, health and human services workers, and other caring citizens how to help an adolescent (age 12-18) who is experiencing a mental health or addictions challenge or is in crisis. The course introduces common mental health challenges for youth, reviews typical adolescent development, and teaches a 5-step action plan for how to help young people in both crisis and non-crisis situations. Topics covered include anxiety, depression, substance use, disorders in which psychosis may occur, disruptive behavior disorders (including AD/HD), and eating disorders.
Contact our office at 715-395-1363 if you would like to host a class or to learn when the next public class is being held.
QPR Suicide Prevention Training
UW-Madison Division of Extension Douglas County is now offering QPR Training for Suicide Prevention for any adults that would like to learn how to save the life of a youth or adult experiencing a suicide crisis in our community. This can include anyone who is positioned to recognize and refer someone at risk of suicide (e.g., parents, friends, neighbors, teachers, coaches, caseworkers, barbers, bartenders, co-workers, etc.).
Extension is currently able to provide this training to our community free of charge thanks to generous funding.
QPR is a suicide prevention training that teaches three simple steps anyone can learn to help save a life from suicide: Question, Persuade, and Refer. Just as people trained in CPR and the Heimlich Maneuver help save thousands of lives each year, people trained in QPR learn how to recognize the warning signs of a suicide crisis and how to respond in order to save a life. Contact our office at 715-395-1363 for more information.
WeCOPE
WeCOPE is an interactive program that helps adults cope with life stress. WeCOPE has been shown to reduce stress and depression, increase positive affect, and improve health behaviors. Managing life’s challenges in healthy ways allows participants to take better care of themselves and others.
This 6-week program meets via Zoom, once a week for 1 hour. These sessions encourage practicing skills such as mindfulness, savoring, positive reappraisal, gratitude, and goal setting among others. Participants gain the most benefit when they are able to commit some time outside of class each week practicing the skills we review in class.