The goal of this program is to share mental health and substance misuse education and training opportunities to people, organizations, and agencies in Orange County. The information and trainings offered through Orange County Health Department and/or our partners are open to those working in a professional capacity and the general public.

The trainings serve organizations and community members of Orange County. The trainings promote increased knowledge of the signs of these health concerns and how to approach or refer individuals who may need assistance.

By educating people outside of the typical health care systems, these trainings will provide additional people in Orange County that are aware of mental health and substance misuse and are aware of how to address the concern and refer to appropriate services or care. By providing these trainings, we hope to see an improvement in the behavioral health of Orange County. 

1. In the fall of 2024, Orange County Health Department and partners provided (2) Adult Mental Health First Aid, (1) Youth Mental Health First Aid, and (1) Applied Suicide Intervention Skills Training (ASIST). A total of 56 participants attended these trainings, including health department staff, community organizations, and the general public. At the time of this SOTCH submission in March of 2025, there is limited performance measure data for the performance measures regarding participant use of the skills learned through training participation. The trainings provided some evaluation metrics, but the data is too small to be meaningful at this point in time. Future trainings will allow additional opportunities to collect and share participant feedback related to performance measures.
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3. In the fall of 2024, Orange County Health Department and Durham County Department of Public Health combined efforts to plan and host a Suicide Awareness and Prevention Walk at Leigh Farm Park, which is near both county borders. This walk was open to the public and there were numerous community partners who hosted a booth to provide educational material on their mental health services. Both health directors spoke to the walk participants on the impact suicide has made in their county and another speaker provided information and education on “#BeThe1To” campaign and the five steps to help someone in crisis. Gently used shoes were collected and displayed to represent the combined 206 lives lost to suicide in both counties for the 2018-2022 period. Of the 206 deaths, 75 deaths by suicide occurred in Orange County residents and 131 occurred in Durham County residents. After the walk, the shoes were donated to local charities.

In 2025, Orange County and partners worked together to offer 11 evidence-based mental health and substance use related trainings. The training offered include four sessions of Adult Mental Health First Aid, one session of Youth Mental Health First Aid, three sessions of Community Resilience Model (CRM) class, and three sessions of Question, Persuade Refer (QPR) suicide prevention training class. A total of 151 people participated in the sessions. This is an increase in number and type of training and number of participants as compared to 2024, where 4 total training sessions were offered with 56 total participants. Training sessions for both years were open to county staff, partners, and general public.

Participants were surveyed after training completion to assess perceived benefit of training participation. Data collected found that 97% of participants reported benefit gained and 94% reported a plan to apply skills learned.