Two mental health first-aid training sessions jointly organized by the New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene, CAIPA, and Healthfirst will be held in Chinatown on July 20th and August 3rd. The event was attended by several distinguished guests, including Echo Song (Asian Community Outreach Specialist at the Health Department), George Liu (Chairman and CEO at CAIPA), Peggy Sheng (Chief Operating Officer), Shirley Huang (Director of Public Relations) William Wang (Director of Marketing at Healthfirst), and Michelle Wang (New York President at The Asian Pacific Islander American Public Affairs Association (APAPA)).
Echo Song expressed, “July is the National Minority Mental Health Awareness Month, and I am thrilled to continue collaborating with the Asian American Medical Association and First Health Network to promote mental health first aid training in the community. We have been conducting this training program for five years since 2018. After the outbreak of the pandemic in 2020, we received significant feedback from previous participants, emphasizing the immense help that the course provided to them. This has encouraged us to continue the program and officially launch a mental health course for youth in 2023.”
George Liu stated, “Today, the mental health issues of youth, seniors, and medical personnel require increasing attention. Many Asian-American youth face bullying at school and lack proper support from their parents at home. Instead, some parents vented their mental and financial stress on their children. In addition, some seniors lack friendly treatment and support from their children. We plan to launch medical-oriented elderly care centers to assist them. After the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic, medical personnel have experienced tremendous pressure, and their mental health issues urgently need to be addressed.”
William Wang emphasized that only when mental health is integrated with physical health can we achieve overall well-being. Through the promotion of mental health first-aid training, he hopes to raise awareness about the importance of holistic health and correct certain misconceptions about mental health in society. The incident involving Coco Lee had a significant impact on the Chinese community, but many ordinary people also had mental health issues and urgently needed help. Through youth-related courses, she hopes to help people around them identify and treat their children’s mental health problems early.
The mental health first-aid training being conducted this time was divided into two sessions based on course content. The training on July 20th is for adult mental health first aid, and the training on August 3rd is for youth mental health first aid. Youth mental health first aid training is aimed at adults who interact with and care for adolescents (such as teachers, parents, etc). It is recommended that participants attend adult training first to learn specific terminology for a comprehensive understanding of their knowledge. Interested individuals can scan the QR code to register online or send a registration SMS to 646-988-8668. For detailed information, please inquire at 917-689-9018. Due to limited class sizes, enrollment will be on a first-come, first-serve basis.
