Is Mental Health First Aid Training Necessary?

Health issues can strike anywhere, and when people spend so much of their waking hours at work, the workplace is often the setting for health emergencies. Many companies train employees on basic first aid or cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) so that there are people able to assist in such emergencies. But these training programs focus specifically on physical health. Fewer companies take steps to similarly educate employees on issues related to mental health. Should yours?

Writing for the LA Times, Rebecca Greenfield and John Tozzi discuss a relatively new form of employee training called mental health first aid: “In a glass conference room in midtown Manhattan, a few dozen employees from Beacon Health Options are taking turns asking each other an incredibly awkward question: ‘Are you having thoughts of suicide?’ There’s a right way to ask and a wrong way, and they’re here to learn the difference.”
Mental health first aid is intended to give ordinary people— as opposed to specially trained counselors or mental health professionals—the tools to help people in need. Greenfield and Tozzi compare it to traditional first aid or CPR, but with a focus on mental rather than physical health. The trend is still in its infancy. Greenfield and Tozzi cite data from the National Council for Behavioral Health showing that roughly 40 employers have trained more than 1,300 people in mental health first aid over the last 2 years.
But, despite its infancy, Greenfield and Tozzi argue the need for this kind of training is very real. They point to 2015 research from the American Psychological Association that indicates that over a quarter of today’s employees suffer from some level of depression or anxiety. The traditional way that these issues are addressed by employers is through employee assistance programs (EAPs), which these authors say are “notoriously unpopular” with employees.
Mental health issues can be awkward to address, but mental health emergencies can occur anywhere, and work is often the source of high levels of stress. Training employees to respond to medical emergencies has long overlooked mental health and focused exclusively on the physical health aspect; however, Greenfield and Tozzi’s reporting suggests that may be starting to change.
[Editor’s Note: People planning programs such as these should become familiar with restrictions based on the American with Disabilities Act and the potential for a “regarded as” claim.]