Mental Health First Aid Training for the Senior Care Providers Community & Family Members

On Tuesday, June 13, and Tuesday, June 20, the Mental Health Association of Morris County will be providing mental health first aid training for the senior care providers community and family members.

Time: 10:00 a.m. – 3:00 p.m. (lunch will be provided)

Where: The Presbyterian Church of Chatham Township
240 Southern Boulevard
Chatham, NJ 07928

Fee: $50 per attendee – (full value: $125 per attendee)

Facilitators: Lucille Deutsch, CALA, CMC
Marissa Ferrito, BA

Registration: Registration is required and space is limited.  Please respond quickly. Registration deadline – Friday, June 9.

To register, please e-mail the information below to Madine Despeine at mdespeine@mhamorris.org. If you do not have access to e-mail, register by calling the Mental Health Association of Morris County at (973) 334-3496:

  • Name (as you would like it to read on your certificate)
  • Phone number
  • E-mail address
  • Occupation and employer name
  • Brief description of why you’re enrolling in the course: (examples: to better serve clients with mental health issues, to help a family member or loved one, seeking general mental health information)

A message from the Mental Health Association of Morris County:

Sometimes, first aid isn’t a bandage or CPR. Sometimes, first aid is YOU.

Any one of your senior clients or family members could be experiencing a mental illness or crisis. You can learn to help them!

You are the professionals who have the most contact with the most vulnerable in our community.  It is you who know our seniors best and who are in the best position to benefit from this credentialed training.  Through generous funding from the Morris County Board of Chosen Freeholders, we are able to offer this training at a reduced rate to those of you being contacted.

The course comes with a 3-year certification.  Madine Despeine and I are the two trained facilitators who will teach the 5-step action plan to offer initial help to people with signs and symptoms of mental illness.  You will learn to recognize those triggers, communicate appropriately with the senior, and then connect the senior with the best professional, peer, social, and self-help care.  If you’ve spoken with anyone who’s taken this training, you know it’s a very powerful program.  One 20-year staffer with the Morris County Division on Aging stated that it was the best training she could ever remember attending. Another said that it should be mandatory for all senior care providers with public interaction.  If you’ve already taken this training, I encourage you to share the information about this next opportunity with your colleagues.

We want to give you and the senior service community strategies for intervening early enough in the lives of distressed seniors to prevent crises.  The goal of offering this training to senior care professionals is to make MHFA training as common as CPR among senior care providers in northern New Jersey.

Attendees will be certified in Mental Health First Aid for a period of three years from date of attendance.

Questions? Call Lucille Deutsch, CALA, CMA Eldercare Solutions, at (973) 267-3616.