“Our basic mental health training class teaches people proven ways to approach friends or family members who may seem to be struggling and get them to reach out for professional help,” said Ceseña.
(San Bernardino, Calif.) “I wasn’t sure what I expected to learn from the class I took with the Inland Empire Men’s Mental Health Program,” says Professor Willie Davis, Ph.D., Assistant Dean, Academic Success, and Program Director, of Loma Linda University’s School of Pharmacy, “but I have to say that it gave me the information I needed to get one of my students the help she needed.”
The Making Hope Happen Foundation offers three free classes through its Inland Empire Men’s Mental Health program for people who would like to help someone they know who seem to be having a hard time in one way or another but aren’t sure how to approach them or what to say that can get them started on feeling better.
Program Manager Gerzon Ceseña says, “Our classes teach people how to recognize the warning signs for things like depression and suicidal thoughts, along with the right and wrong things to say to their friends or family members who seem to be preoccupied with a problem or problems that they may be reluctant to talk about.”
“We offer two Mental Health First Aid courses, one that focuses on adults and one on youth, along with an introductory course we call ‘QPR,’ which stands for Question, Persuade, Refer, that provides insights into helping someone who may be thinking about suicide,” said Ceseña.
The day after Professor Davis took the QPR course, he was approached by a student who was feeling down and thinking about dropping out of the program. “I used what I learned in the QPR class to get her to start talking about a recent trauma she suffered and the thoughts of suicide she was having. She agreed to my suggestion that she get some help.
“I’m happy to say that since that day, she has gotten counseling and is now feeling better and doing better academically.”
The QPR Gatekeeper course takes about an hour to 90 minutes, depending on how many people are enrolled and the number of questions that are raised during the training. It provides basic essentials that prepare attendees to then go on to either the Youth or Adult Mental Health First Aid course.
For more information or to sign up for a course, visit. EMensMentalHealth.org or call (909) 347-7234. Class schedules are updated monthly.
