"Customers" are the people whose lives are affected -- for better or worse -- by the actions of the program or strategy.

Customers:

• Polk County government employees, who elect to receive training
  • Includes staff who directly interface with members of the public, including lower-income, lower-education, or vulnerable populations
  • Will experience improved knowledge and confidence regarding suicide and mental health crisis mitigation, and be able to apply this within and beyond the workplace
• Polk County professional and organizational stakeholders, who elect to receive training
  • Will experience improved knowledge and confidence regarding suicide and mental health crisis mitigation, and be able to apply this within and beyond the workplace
• At-risk and vulnerable groups, such as individuals who use substances or marginalized groups who are more likely to experience mental health crises
  • Includes homebound seniors
  • In time, will become surrounded by more community members who are trained to mitigate mental health crises, and therefore benefit from destigmatized and individual-level support from fellow Polk citizens
• The Polk County general public
  • In time, will be trained or know someone who is trained to mitigate mental health crisis, and may seek to receive training themselves; These individuals will be more prepared to identify and respond to mental health crises in their own social networks, potentially saving lives

The partners implementing this Mental Health First-Aid Strategy include:

Other partners contribute to this strategy by offering physical spaces to host trainings, supporting communications/advertisement to build awareness, or sending members of their organizations to be trained in order to better serve the population.

What is It?

An evidence-based strategy, mental health first aid (County Health Rankings and Roadmaps) employs a training for laypeople to learn to recognize signs of mental health issues, including mental health crisis or substance use disorder, and to assist at-risk individuals in seeking the help they need.

**Note: In this context, mental health first aid is a general strategy, which includes the Mental Health First Aid (MHFA) program from the National Council for Mental Wellbeing© and other, similar mental health and substance use crisis-prevention trainings. 

Considerations and Activities

An analysis of the central concerns in the Mental Health category, or "What's Hurting," revealed stigma and a lack of providers, among other factors, as impeding progress. Proposed activities within this strategy that may help us circumvent these concerns include:

• Mental Health First Aid Training: Mental Health First Aid (MHFA), from the National Council for Mental Wellbeing©, is an evidence-based, early-intervention course that teaches participants about mental health and substance use challenges.
• QPR Training: Question, Persuade, and Refer (QPR) Training, from the QPR Institute, is a widespread, mental health gatekeeper and suicide prevention training for individuals, organizations, and professionals. QPR training employs the question, persuade, refer principles as the three central steps for gatekeepers (anyone who might interact with a person in crisis, including parents, teachers, leaders, and neighbors) to save lives.
• CIT Training: Crisis Intervention Training (CIT), from the National Alliance on Mental Illness, teaches individuals, often first responders and mental health professionals, to help those experiencing a mental health crisis. CIT Training includes information to help understand mental illness, communicate with a person in crisis, promote safety for both the person in crisis and the responder, and connect the person in need with resources.

Training the general public, across disciplines, to recognize and respond to mental health concerns in their fellow Polk citizens may both reduce stigma and lessen the strain on mental health providers' capacity. 

• Annual Progress: Mental Health First Aid is situated within the Mental Health Advisory Committee, a subset of our new, unnamed, tri-focused advisory group (Mental Health/Substance Use/Healthy Eating & Active Living). As of July 2025, we have implemented-- in partnership with Vaya Health and other community-based organizations -- two mental health first aid courses and trained 51 individuals from various organizations and the general community. We have seen a positive increase in self-reported confidence in responding to mental health crisis situations, suggesting progress in not only increasing the number of trained individuals, but also their likelihood of responding to crisis. 
• Missing Data: Due to resource and staffing challenges, we are unable to offer mental health first aid trainings every month. However, our goal is to host at least one training per quarter, and train at least 75 individuals by the end of 2025.

We will continue to report monthly on our progress with this strategy, and offer a wider progress view in the  2025 SOTCH.