OTTAWA – Bell Let's Talk and the Canadian Red Cross are investing $150,000 in new initiatives focused on mental health training for Canadians.
The new first aid program will help both first responders and the general public to provide mental health support in emergency situations. The Red Cross trains over 644,000 people in First Aid and CPR each year, including some 425,000 participants in emergency and standard first aid courses.
Canadian Red Cross will incorporate mental health programming into its standard first aid training, enabling individual Canadians to recognize the signs and symptoms of a developing mental health emergency and provide comfort and care until professional help arrives. In addition, a new Canadian Red Cross program will focus on training first responders to look beyond physical symptoms and evaluate emotional well-being following an emergency such as a natural disaster.
This new mental health training component will also be incorporated into the new section on Mental Health under the Learn tab in the Red Cross First Aid App, supporting both the general public and first responders who use the app.
The integration of mental health training into the Learn tab on Mental Health in the Red Cross First Aid App will be completed in Fall 2016, while mental health training will be fully integrated into first aid courses by Winter 2017. The training program for first responders will be available across Canada in 2017.
"This partnership between the Canadian Red Cross and Bell Let's Talk will provide Canadians everywhere with the resources to recognize the signs and symptoms of mental health distress during an emergency," said Bell Let's Talk chair Mary Deacon, in the news release. "Initiatives like this are a crucial step in building mental health consideration into every level of health care, and to ensuring Canadians experiencing a mental health crisis get the support they need as quickly as possible."
