American Psychiatric Association Foundation

all across the country. So to talk more about this issue, let me bring in Rall Andrews, Junior Executive director of the American Psychiatric Association Foundation, which you can learn more about and support at APAF dot org. Rall, thank you for taking the time to come on the show, and let's start with an overview of how your foundation first came about and some of the work that you do.

and one hundred countries around the world. And so what the Foundation does, briefly, our mission and vision is to put science and policy in action in community where we live, learn, work, worship, and play, so that we demystify mental health and substance use, so that we begin to prioritize whole health, so that our prioritizing primary care and mental care are all one and the same, because it's one human being.

ever been. Unfortunately, still more than half of Americans tell us that they don't know how to get started to get mental health care, or they feel a shame or fear around getting some help from mental help when they need it, and This is particularly true when it comes to our younger adults and youth because they're openly talking about mental health concerns, but their parents, their teachers, their coaches, most of us vestiges of twentieth century Cold War, we're

not comfortable having those conversations with them.

should be helping us do more. But then there's the downside of that on that seesaw again where forty five percent of Americans, less than half believe that the school staff is getting trained, and that same number of people, forty five percent of parents and grandparents and caregate don't think they're spending enough time talking to their children or

their young adults about these complicated issues either. And that's where the Foundation comes in the a Foundation is trying to come up with tools, tips, and resources, some of which can be provided in school and at no cost to parents or the schools, so that they can demystify and destigmatize some of these conversations so we can get better whole health outcomes.

to do more and think they could do more. Unfortunately, only forty five percent of folks across the country believe

that school faculty and staff have been trained. So what we did is we were approached by the HHS Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Association sometimes referred to as SAMSUNG, and they gave us a grant to actually train faculty and staff at school K twelve schools kindergarten to high school anywhere in the United States for free, at no cost of the school and at no cost to the parents. It's about a two and a half two to two and a half hour training, so you don't have to

take all day to do it. He could either be done in big group settings or it could be done individually with particular classrooms or schools. And this is for the faculty and staff. It's called Notice Talk Act at School. And again if your listeners go to APAF dot org slash schools, you can learn more about Notice Talk Act at School. But I look at this as the new stop dropping roll for mental health, and many of your listens familiar with the principles behind stop drop and roll.

So when we talk about Notice Talk Act at school, what we're talking about is how do I notice when James or Jennifer are struggling or seem to be struggling at school because they're withdrawn, they're not keeping up with their class work, they seem to be distracted or easily irritated. It doesn't mean they have a mental health challenge, but we know they're stressed in some way. I've noticed it. Now what do I do about it? That's where the

talk comes in. It makes the educator a better listener, so that what they're able to do is have a constructive, courageous conversation with a student or young adult versus a breakdown conversation that's difficult. And then when we talk about resources, what are the readily availables, tools, tips and resources that we might want to contact through the parents or the family caregivers to get the school some help. So some of that may be going to see the school social worker.

Some of that might be working with the coaches and the director of the theater arts about how they're interacting with our students, but some of it is just parents. And if I could just tell your audience one story I encountered right before the end of last school year. I was doing youth basketball coaching for seventh and eighth graders, and one of my students was getting teased by his classmates.

And again we talk about younger students being much more comfortable talking about mental health, and some student made the comment on my basketball team, oh my goodness, X player is suicidal because they flunked their pop quiz. Now they don't know whether they really meant what the power of

those words meant. Ryan, But the reality of it is I had to find a way to engage without embarrassing the student who might be struggling, but also be attuned to the fact that I needed to alert the player's parents because I didn't want to find out twenty four or forty eight hours later there had been a catastrophe, And so I was able to pull them aside, and I talked to the guys and said, look, you know, we got to be careful about how we use these terms,

because death by suicidety is permanent and it's serious, and I think they understood that. But it just goes to show you it isn't the kind of thing I would have done forty five some odd years ago when I was in eighth or ninth grade.

more about support at APAF dot org. What has the response been like from public schools and educators to this program because it used to be you had a school counselor and that's usually who kids would go to if they're troubled, but now really this responsibility, it seems like it's falling more on the teachers to if they see something, say something, and do something.

Some programs only make sure the teachers are aware, but you know, sometimes who notices is the cafeteria staff see something. The custodial staff see some things that others may not see except the homeroom teacher. And so instead of sending somebody to the principle or detention, let's find out what's

really going on. Well because of Notice Talk Act. I remember one teacher in Michigan told me that one of the student's parents had recently passed away and you know, was really trying to stay up with their studies, but was the withdrawal was grief. So now we got we can figure out now that we know what the problem is, our Notice Talk Act has school is not asking students that the faculty and staff to be doctors. It is not asking them to be therapists, It is not asking

them to be you know, PhD level counselors. But it's giving them some extra tools in their tool belt to engage before we lose our students in a catastrophe arises. Here's a couple of other things that came out of the pop SO. While back to school is very exciting for many people, for some it is it raises anxiety. And here are some things that are on the minds

of folks who answered the APA pop so. Over two out of five parents forty two believe that bullying and cyber bullying were the number one concern they had with their children going back to school if they had a summer off and now here we go. I'm getting ready to get back into the bullying and cyber bullying. I want your audience to be aware of it because it may not be your child bullied or getting bullied, but you need to be aware that is out there. Uh

thirty two percent. You know, almost one in three of the parents who responded basically said straight mental health issues, anxiety and depression among others. We're a top concern. And Ryan,

this won't surprise you or anybody in your audience. Thirty percent of our whole respondents said that just the overwhelming push around social media is a drag on people being willing to go back to school, either because they're so tied to a device they can't concentrate, or they're afraid of what they're going to see and they're just constantly consuming negative images and it's making them feel bad and making them feel bad about themselves, and they don't see it out.

certainly a lot of negatives. You just highlighted a few, but we could spend the rest of the show talking about all of that, and then on the flip side, there are some positives where sometimes you have people who are going through things they're able to connect with others who can relate to them. What if you see more broadly speaking, when it comes to social media and the mental health challenges that we're facing in this country.

is invading privacy concerns, and it is making multitasking. If it whatever was positive, it's become a negative because your brain never gets a chance to process, right if you're constantly taking in data through the number one machine ever devised, which is the human brain, the brain needs some time to understand what its inputs are, so you can have positive,

productive outputs. But if you're constantly just ingesting negative, negative, negative, it's almost like they used to say in the old days, Ryan, you want to lose weight, you can't live off taking ice cream every day. Right, social media has become our digital taking ice cream. And that doesn't mean that there aren't good things about it. Certainly we can learn about good and bad things in real time, but we can't be lost in them and with our children because we're

not having these conversations. One of the things that the poll is trying to tell us is that you got less than you know, half of parents who feel like they even know how to have these conversations with their children. You think they're just taking your device as al because you know they're the parent. They're just being me, you know, you're just being like, I'm trying to give you a chance to reflect and recharge and be whole, health minded, not delused with negative images all day every day and

you don't even really know how to process them. There's also a new book that APA put out, and I just call it to the attention of your audience, not because they have to do anything, but there's a brand new book by Harrison and call you call Social Media and Youth Mental Health. And if you search that, I'm sure it's available on Amazon and any other places where people go, Barnes and Noble, but it's called Social Media

and Youth Mental Health. And it's a very short read, it's a paperback, but it will give parents and family caregivers some comfort short term. However, this is the two year anniversary of the nine eight eight National Crisis Helpline.

So if you are any of your listeners fe like they are someone they love or no needs help immediately and you don't have time to wait for books to come in and so forth and so on s dial nine eight eight, you can call texture Chat twenty four hours a day, seven days a week, the nine eight eight Helpline and you can get a counselor right then

and there. They don't there where you are, but they don't have to come to you if you don't need them, and they can be available at any time of day or night for people who feel like they're struggling, or again somebody they love or know is struggling and they want to get them some help immediately nine eight eight.

If you're not ready for nine eight eight, what I want you to do is go to APAF APAF dot org and just check out some of the things that we're trying to do, some of our tools, tips and resources. But the most important thing for parents Ryan, if you have heard about Notice Talk Active School and it's not already in your school, this is an opportunity and a charge, a call to act action for parents and family caregivers.

Here is a complementary resource. It's not free to us, but it is free to the school and is free to the parent. To bring this resource out and let make sure the parents, the principal knows about it, make sure the vice principal knows about it, make sure the coach, whoever your primary interface in your school knows about this

Notice Talk Act resource. The good moves is we've got another two years on the grand so that's another three school years where we're gonna be able to provide this training at no cost, high quality training for two two and a half hours, at no cost to the school and no cost to the parent. Ryan, I don't know what other deal with all these inflation issues and all this other stuff. You don't have to pay us to come,

and you don't have to feed us. But we're gonna give you Notice Talk Act and we're gonna stick with you if you do it.

I want to get to some other resources you have available on the website too in just a second, but I do want to go back to the nine eight eight crisis online and how big of a game changer that's been from what you've heard from those of Utah two, and how important that's going to be as we enter another school year.

They can either help you navigate a tough situation in real time, well, they can tell you where locally you or those you love and know can go to get help, and if need be, they can send somebody to you

to help you navigate your situation. Well over five million people a year are now tapping into nine eight eight now Admittedly, you know it's five or ten times that for nine one one, but nine one one has been around since nineteen sixty eight, and they didn't overnight get forty fifty million people calling that line either, but it became commonplace, and so we believe. The nice thing about

nine eight eight, it's not a general triage Ryan. When people call nine eight eight, the operators standing by and know you're calling about a mental health concern, and they're trained in their own platform of how to do intake for a mental health concern and then where to triage that. So you get the right people doing the right things the right time, the right place in real time. And

so that has been a true game changer. But what's really disheartening, as much mental health awareness as there is across the United States and now globally, we still are in conversation with folks and people still never have heard of nine eight eight. And again, the thing I love about nine eight eight is that they were smart enough to put a call, text or chat feature in the platform.

So if you needed if you went in right now and said, hey, I'm online, you know, I'm just depressed and I just need to talk to somebody, you can do that right now, and a real person would respond, game changer.

We just need to check in. And what we've been able to do with that is get people a resource. We call it ores, a r ORS. Like you roll in a boat and you just want to have again something that you don't need a training or anything. ORS will give you a way to do that. You know, when it comes to our faith and mental health where

we worship. You know, one of the things we're hearing and seeing is that you know, almost forty percent of the time, the first place somebody goes if they're of faith, and it doesn't matter what denomination, the first place somebody goes when they're struggling with a mental health concern is

a faith leader. And so we had a pre pandemic Faith Guide and we were rebooting that right now, So just in time for back to school in September, we will unveil our second edition of the Faith and Mental Health Guide for Faith leaders so that they can get better equipped now when they want to do in person

Notice Talk Act training. We can work with congregations to do that, but until you can get to us, you've been able to grab the book and you can work through and it set up in a notice Talk Act at the chapel or notice Talk Act at the temple type frame. So we still want you to know when you have signs and symptoms that you're seeing. We want you to know how to have a courageous, not a difficult conversation, and we want you to know where you can go with toolstips and resources. And the last one

I want to highlight is the work. So one of the things we've seen since the pandemic is that our healthcare workers have been under siege. They've gotten a break for four plus years now, and so they're feeling burnout. Many of them are leaving healthcare altogether. And so through our Center for Workplace Mental Health, we've created a toolkit called Frontline Connect. And again all of this can be found on APAF dot org and you go and you

can get the Frontline Connect toolkit. But more importantly, when you're having staff meetings and teametings at work, you can bring this to your setting and say, hey, why don't we try to reach out to this foundation to get more information or see if we can employ some of

these tools ourselves. And then the last piece for there may be some listeners out there who have family members or friends who are either interested in medical school, they're in medical school, or they just graduate in medical school and they're trying to find their way. We host the largest professional development pipeline program for med students and resident

doctors these trainees in the world. So I've got eighty institutions working with over six hundred med students and trainees across the United States and nineteen different countries around the world.

municipal jails, our city and county jails. And what judges ought too often because they haven't been through Notice Talk Act, what they don't understand is sometimes the criminal defendant needs deflection and diversion to mental health care, and sometimes they need a jail cell. But our solutions, particularly in our bigger cities and counties have really been they just put

them away. Could be loitering, we don't even know. Sometimes these crimes are relatively small, the need for help is great, and so we're trying to get judges better informed about what their options are. And I'm not telling you that there's not a public safety component where there isn't time. But the nice thing about stepping up and you can go to stepping Up online dot org and you can see that over five hundred counties in the United States

have become Stepping Up counties. So what ends up happening is that if you are incarcerated now on intake at the jail, there's a mental health assessment that goes in to see whether or not you have the capacity to have committed a heinus crime. And sometimes the more severe,

the more triage. But when I talk to sheriffs across the country, one of the things they've told me every now and again, you hear about an uprising and a prison or jail then, and what they tell me is, if you don't set up the pods inside the jail correctly, you put a high level offender in the same vicinity with a maximum level offender and You're probably gonna have problems just because the person who's committed the worst homicide and is in the same jail pod or sell with

a white collar embezzler, they're probably gonna have some problems. So stepping Up gives tools, tips and resources to public safety officials so that when it's appropriate, and I emphasize when it's appropriate, we deflect and we divert from jail to treatment. And the one place I want to call out in Miami Dade County and Florida, and I want to, you know, wish all your Florida listeners godspeed recovering from

the most recent hurricane. But they're building a separate diversion and deflection facility where inmates who deserve treatment, not necessarily just long term jail sentences, are actually getting that multidisciplinary treatment and they're not just getting locked up in a jail sale. And we'll wait and see what's going to happen.

notice talk needs to be at your school. Notice Talk acted school can help. Let's get to it and we'll get to you.