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Youth Mental Health First Aid

As part of the Kentucky AWARE Project funded by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services SAMHSA, the Kentucky Department of Education is currently providing Youth Mental Health First Aid Training. Youth Mental Health First Aid teaches you how to identify, understand and respond to signs of mental illnesses and substance use disorders. This evidence-based 6-hour certification course gives adults who work with youth the skills they need to reach out and provide initial support to adolescents (ages 12-18) who may be in crisis or developing a mental health or substance use problem and help connect them to the appropriate care. Kentucky Department of Education is able to offer the course for free to school and community groups. Request more information by emailing ymhfainfo@education.ky.gov.

Kentucky Resources

Kentucky Department for Behavioral Health, Developmental and Intellectual Disabilities

Kentucky Loss Support Groups

Kentucky Mental Health Providers

Kentucky's Website on Suicide Prevention

School Suicide Prevention Toolkit

Seven County Services, Inc.

Suicide Prevention and Awareness

Additional Resources

American Foundation for Suicide Prevention

American Association of Suicidology

National Suicide Prevention Lifeline

Suicide Prevention Resource Center

Sources of Strength

Survivor Experiences

As many as one third of the people in Kentucky, suffer devastating and long lasting emotional trauma when a family member, friend, co-worker, neighbor or classmate dies as a result of suicide.

This is not just a Kentucky problem, but a national one. Each year nearly 30,000 people in the United States die by suicide. The devastated family and friends they leave behind are known as “survivors.” There are millions of survivors who are trying to cope with this heartbreaking loss.

Survivors often experience a wide range of grief reactions, including some or all of the following:

• Shock is a common immediate reaction.
  You may feel numb or disoriented, and may have trouble concentrating.
• Symptoms of depression, including disturbed sleep, loss of appetite intense sadness, and lack of energy.
• Anger towards the deceased, another family member, a therapist, or yourself.
• Relief, particularly if the suicide followed a long and difficult mental illness.
• Guilt, including thinking, “If only I had.…”

These feelings usually diminish over time, as you develop your ability to cope and begin to heal.

Just as people can die of heart disease or cancer, people can die as a consequence of mental illness. Ninety percent of all people who die by suicide have a diagnosable psychiatric disorder at the time of their death (most often depression or bipolar disorder).

Suicide is almost always complicated, resulting from a combination of painful suffering, desperate hopelessness, and underlying psychiatric illness.