New York Gov. Kathy Hochul wants to make mental health first-aid training available to every 10th grader in the state, according to an article in Chalkbeat New York.
The plan would expand a program that teaches students to recognize and respond to mental health and substance use challenges among friends and peers — the Teen Mental Health First Aid program. This is a 4.5-hour course developed by the National Council for Mental Wellbeing, a nonprofit. Teens learn to identify signs that their peers are struggling, monitor their own well-being, understand the effects of school bullying and violence, and talk with friends and classmates about mental health.
Students who took the first aid training were more likely to intervene appropriately and empathetically with peers facing mental health challenges, according to researchers at Johns Hopkins University.
The state currently allocates $3.5 million per year to the program, and has trained close to 4,850 students so far, officials told Chalkbeat. Under the governor’s new proposal, the program would grow over five years, enabling all of New York’s approximately 180,000 10th-graders to be trained by the fourth year, according to state officials.
In the past five years, New York has increased the number of state-supported, school-based mental health clinics by nearly 50%, with 1,300 clinics in 25% of the state’s public schools.
To tackle the teen mental health crisis, Hochul also is trying to protect kids from social media-related threats and online gaming platforms by expanding age verification requirements, disabling AI chatbot features, and including “privacy by default” settings, giving parents control over who can connect with young people under the age of 13.
Chalkbeat New York
