FACES for the Future Coalition

Changing the face of health.

“Help Fight the Silence”: Youth Mental Health First Aid

It’s not something my family talked about much – at least not openly. But there have been members of my family who have committed suicide, who struggled with addiction or who tried desperately to manage a mental illness while shrouded in silence. As time marched on and I became an adult, it began to make less and less sense to me – the silence. I understood it, of course – it was part of my culture as it is with so many of us – but I struggle to be a part of it any more. There was so much stigma attached to these family members and their struggles that IF those issues were discussed, it was always in hushed voices. And as I grew older I began to understand how silence itself contributes to the mental health problems individuals face, as well as those we face in our communities. I have learned stigma is dangerous and leaves people to suffer when there is help available if we could just get over the hushed voices.
Over time, I’ve seen our communities become more willing to talk – maybe it’s because we’ve all been touched by someone in our lives who has struggled with mental health over the years. Maybe we lost someone to suicide and we wonder if there was something we could have done differently when we saw they were hurting. Maybe it’s because mental health and our collective struggles with it are in the news nearly every day. Maybe its because we are fighting our own battle in silence but just haven’t found the way to tell someone our truth. Whatever the reasons, I’m grateful for the increased conversation because I believe it is really the only way we can help save lives.

To help fight the silence, this summer FACES Coalition Program Manager, Jasmine Nakagawa-Wong, and I took advantage of an opportunity offered by Alameda County Behavioral Health Care Services and we became certified as trainers in Youth Mental Health First Aid.  That means we can train and certify adults connected to young people who want to be armed with some tools to help them if a serious mental health situation should arise.

It is no different than learning CPR – it’s potentially life-saving information and vital that we take on MHFA certification as we would any other community based public health effort.  We are all connected to youth – through our families, our work, our faith communities, our neighborhoods – even in public spaces.  It is incumbent upon us to do all we can to help them if a situation should arise. It can be a matter of life and death.

Do you know what you would say or do if a young person disclosed something sensitive to you? Do you know how to approach them if you have concerns about their behavior? Do you know what you would say to them if they admitted to you that they have thoughts of suicide or self-harm? Do you have a plan for how you would get them connected to professional help, when to call for that help immediately, how you would support them afterwards or how anxiety or depression may present in someone who is say, 14 years old?  If you are a professional who works with youth, do you have answers for those questions for a youth you know in your personal life? If you’ve hesitated even once – I ask that you please consider getting certified in Youth Mental Health First Aid.

If you or a group you belong to are interested in getting certified, please call the FACES for the Future Coalition offices. The certification lasts for 3 years and is useful to those who work with youth professionally (e.g. educators, coaches, youth leaders) or those who just want to be better prepared to support the young people in their lives. We can walk you through options for certification and answer any questions you may have about the training. I have attended many trainings and I still found value in this certification – even as a parent of teens.

Help is possible. Recovery happens. And hope is real. These are true things.

But none of that occurs for a young person if we stay locked in silence, if we don’t do all we can to intervene, if we continue to hide behind stigma instead of coming together as a community to support our youth. Please help us support youth by considering certification.

 Written by Brooke Briggance, Deputy Director, FACES for the Future Coalition

Why “At-Promise” Youth are Good for Global Health

As a nation and society, we often unfairly view youth from underserved communities through a deficit lens. Frequent terms used to describe these young people include “at risk” and “marginalized,” referring generally to young people who face situational circumstances that we believe will inevitably lead to their personal and professional failures. Labeling youth as “at-risk” presumes that these children will have poor outcomes, despite never having been given a chance to prove otherwise. Moreover, these terms perpetuate destructive stereotypes of young people in our country, missing the mark completely in defining who these young people truly are and what they can contribute to our world.

Those of us who work with youth from difficult backgrounds prefer the term “at-promise youth.” “At Promise” references the extraordinary raw potential every young person possesses. The term views youth through a strength-based perspective. It also helps to fill in some of the details missing in the former labels, reminding us that youth have natural gifts and innate potential for greatness.

Circumstances do not define youth; it is how those young people transcend those circumstances that defines who they are and what they are capable of doing.

Over the past three years, our FACES for the Future Coalition has proudly partnered with the Global Health Fellows Program (GHFP) II and the US Agency for International Development (USAID) to prepare at-promise youth for careers in global health. Our work is based on the premise that these young people are ideally suited for global health careers because they have developed the necessary competencies for effective global health practice through their lived experiences. We know children who confront adversity in their communities, particularly on a regular basis, must develop and master skills that enable them to effectively navigate their way through those circumstances. For them it is not a matter of choice – it is matter of necessity.

As a pediatrician, I have unfortunately witnessed the disastrous impact of adverse community experiences on youth I have cared for over the years. Community violence alone has killed too many of my patients and traumatized more than I can remember. But, I have been deeply inspired by seeing how young people respond and rise above those moments of crisis and adversity.

Community challenges, such as poverty, violence, food deserts, and poor access to basic support services, often teach young people very harsh but effective lessons about resiliency, innovation, adaptability, resourcefulness, creativity and independence.  Research has shown that these are key soft skills global health employers seek in early career professionals, and these are not the lessons learned in a classroom setting. How they effectively respond to those challenges helps form the important lessons that test and reinforce the “promise” of young people.

How does this connect to global health? We teach our students that these skill sets are not unique to young people in this country; they are also exemplary of the skills that individuals in communities across the globe acquire from confronting similar challenges. There are shared and common experiences between our youth and others in the world. We inform our students that a US global health worker who understands and has mastered those skills through lived experience is, in many ways, best equipped to serve the needs of his/her global counterpart.

Our work with GHFP-II has allowed us to teach our youth about the potential they have for impacting the health and wellbeing of global communities in very profound and substantial ways. Students are learning to reframe their challenging lived experiences as assets, and to understand how those assets constitute much of the promise they bring to the world and to the global health field. Ultimately, it will be the students themselves, and not just us, who can demonstrate why they are well suited for a future in global health.

Interested in hearing from the students themselves? You can read their blogs here.

-Tomás A. Magaña, MD, MA, FAAP
Founder & Director, FACES for the Future Coalition