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Latest in-demand employee training: Mental health first aid

About 40 employers have trained more than 1,300 people over the last two years in mental health first aid, a relatively new kind of training that is designed to give ordinary people tools to help someone in need.

By Rebecca Greenfield, John Tozzi | Updated on January 12, 2018
More than a quarter of workers reported some level of depression or anxiety in a 2015 survey by the American Psychological Association. (Photo: Shutterstock)

In a glass conference room in midtown Manhattan, a few dozen employees from Beacon Health Options are taking turns asking each other an incredibly awkward question: “Are you having thoughts of suicide?” There’s a right way to ask and a wrong way, and they’re here to learn the difference.

The exercise is just one component of an eight-hour course in “mental health first aid,” a relatively new kind of  training that, like first aid or CPR, is designed to give ordinary people tools to help someone in need. And as with first aid and CPR, companies have begun to see the value in having employees who have the skills to say something, if they see something.

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