Southwest Indiana Project AWARE aims to strengthen community capacity to address adolescent mental health needs by bolstering community partnerships and increasing the number of youth-interacting adults in Vanderburgh County and Warrick County, Indiana who are trained in Youth Mental Health First Aid (YMHFA). The population of focus is adolescents aged 12-18 in Vanderburgh and Warrick Counties. Project AWARE is part of a larger, national mental health first-aid training program.

Adults who work with youth (educators, Boy Scout leaders, etc.) in a non-clinical capacity receive a full-day training to better recognize early onset symptoms of mental health issues. After the trainers receive their training they then provide training to other groups of adults in the community. If an adult suspects a youth needs a mental health intervention, a referral is made.

To achieve the goals of Project AWARE, the Deaconess Health and St. Mary’s Health partnership delivers YMHFA Instructor and First Aider training, is developing a YMHFA sustainability plan, developing/strengthening partnerships with relevant youth-serving community agencies and programs, and developing a social marketing and awareness campaign.

The Goals of Project Aware include:

1) Increase capacity of adults to respond to behavioral health issues of adolescents
2) Increase the mental health literacy of youth-interacting adults
3) Link adolescents with behavioral health issues to mental, emotional, and behavioral health assistance and services
4) Increase the number of collaborative partnerships with youth- serving community agencies/programs
5) Conduct outreach and engagement strategies with adolescents and their families/caregivers to increase awareness of and promote positive behavioral health

Collaboration and partnerships can help drive awareness of mental health issues and training adolescents in Youth Mental Health First Aid (YMHFA) can help spread awareness of mental health resources and referrals to professionals.

Project AWARE has completed year one of the three-year program.

To date, one training for Youth Mental Health First Aid Instructors (thirteen participants) and twenty training sessions for First Aiders (322 participants) have been conducted. Memoranda of Understanding have been signed by seventeen partner organizations, demonstrating a commitment to collaboration. Overall, 100% of participants indicated that they would recommend the YMHFA course to others. Trained Instructors and First Aiders made a total of 304 youth referrals to mental health resources in the community.

Additionally, the project team has begun sustainability planning and development of a social marketing and awareness campaign. A Facebook page has been set up for the project; as a proxy measure for community exposure, the number of Likes are tracked. Based on an assessment of demographics, the project appears to be reaching adults who interact with youth who have been trained or could potentially be trained as First Aiders (89% are 25 years or older). Additionally, the Facebook page allows the project to announce and advertise open trainings, share pictures from the trainings, recognize Instructors, and share mental health information.