Mild, Bieniek provide mental health first-aid training

Nov. 25, 2019

Toni Mild and Eric Bieniek, Slippery Rock University assistant professors of special education, have been certified as Youth Mental Health First Aid instructors and have subsequently trained more than 165 SRU education majors to provide mental health response when they become teachers.

YMHFA is a training program administered by the National Council for Behavioral Health that teaches people how to identify, understand and respond to signs of mental illnesses and substance use disorders. More than 2 million people in the U.S. have been trained with YMHFA's eight-hour course, taught by more than 15,000 certified instructors.

Mild and Bieniek's efforts are part of the SRU College of Education's initiative to provide pre-service teachers a better understanding of mental health and to incorporate suicide prevention techniques within a school setting.