You Guys, I Won a Thing!!!

Holy shit, you guys! I did a thing! It's so awesome!

So, I try not to share too much about my work on my blog. Mostly because it's boring, mostly because it's of a sensitive nature. So, let me back up and tell you about what I've been doing for the past four years...

I work for our local County government, dealing with crime, the court system, and more recently, Mental Health and Substance Abuse (once I became the assistant to the Criminal Justice Liaison at work). 

In 2016, the Board of County Commissioners required that our small department implement and execute training for all County employees in this new-fangled thing called Mental Health First Aid. It's an 8-hour training course to teach laypeople to recognize and help assist those with mental health and/or substance abuse issues. I equate it to First Aid that you'd learn from the Red Cross - it's like emergency help, until the real help arrives. At first, my boss was muddling through, trying to figure out how to get a project of this size off the ground (we have over 800 employees that needed to take this training, at the time we started). After a few weeks, he asked for my assistance, and well... with my obnoxiously amazing organizational skills, I kind of stole this project from my boss and ran with it. I scheduled trainers and venues; I implemented a system of scheduling attendees (I started out doing it by hand, which got really old really quick), by June 2016, we were having trainings of 25 people at a time (as recommended by the curriculum) every single week. We trained over 850 employees in just over twelve months.

Once the word began to spread about how good and useful the course was, the Commissioners asked ("asked") us to take on the challenge of also training the remainder of county staff (that didn't fall under the division of the County Commission), any and all of the outlying municipalities (smaller cities within County limits), the entire civilian staff of the Sheriff's Office, the entire Library District, and any non-profit organization that received funding from the County. These staff were trained from 2017 through the beginning of 2019. We held our last class in February, and once everything was tallied up, we could report that we trained two thousand people in Mental Health First Aid. That's two thousand people within the community who are now able to recognize mental health and/or substance abuse issues in people, and assist until more professional help can be obtained.

In March 2020 (right before Covid sent everyone into a tailspin), on a whim, my boss (a.k.a. Boss Man) decided to submit our accomplishment for the 2020 Achievement Award in the category of "Personnel Management, Employment, and Training" from the National Association of Counties (NACo) and I just found out that we won!!!  WE WON!!!

The email said:

The National Association of Counties (NACo) is pleased to grant Alachua County a 2020 Achievement Award for its program titled “A New, Collaborative Strategy to Build Awareness of Mental Health Issues and Provide a Practical Response” in the category of Personnel Management, Employment and Training. Due to its exceptional results and unique innovations, your program has been chosen to receive the honor of Best in Category! Each year, one program in each of the 18 categories receives the Best in Category designation, and we congratulate you on this outstanding distinction.

 I don't know what other counties submitted applications (or if I'll ever know), but the fact that my lil ol county and my lil ol training program just won a national award is killing me!

Ironically, due to the WuFlu, there is NOT an award banquet this year, so I can't go and get this award in person. But we'll be highlighted on their website and in a special issue of their newsletter. 

I most definitely believe that our Board of Commissioners will want to toot their own horns as well, and there'll probably be a big to-do at an upcoming board meeting.

ETA:
On June 15th, the County posted a story about it on their website. 

ETAA:
On June 19th, the local newspaper also ran a story about it. I refuse to link to the paper (because they are blatantly anti-conservative and offensively biased), so I copied the text (and removed any actual names from the story, for Boss Man's privacy).

County wins award for expansive mental health training for workers.

Alachua County was nationally recognized for its three-year-long initiative to train county workers in mental-health first aid.

 In 2016, the board of county commissioners started the Mental Health First Aid Training Initiative. So far, it has trained 2,126 county employees how best to respond to mental health crises, and the National Association of Counties gave the program an Achievement Award earlier this month.

The association has an annual award program designed to recognize and celebrate innovative county initiatives throughout the country. Eighteen awards were given this year, and each recognized a different type of service that counties provide, such as criminal justice, public safety or parks and recreation.

Alachua County won the award for “personnel management, employment and training” with its Mental Health First Aid Training Initiative.

MHFA participants — all county employees, by order of the board of county commissioners — were required to attend an eight-hour training session where they learned about common mental illnesses like schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, depression and anxiety.

During the training, participants were separated into small groups to discuss appropriate actions to take in specific scenarios where someone is having a mental-health crisis.

Over the past three years, the program had three phases; the first focused on training a total of 1,131 county government employees.

The second phase began in 2017 and sought to focus on those who work for the county’s constitutional and judicial officers. This included 867 workers from places like the county’s property appraiser, tax collector and supervisor of elections offices.

In the third phase, the program focused on training staff in municipalities throughout the county, like Newberry and Alachua, along with the library district and some charitable organizations. This amounted to 128 more trained staff.

The Alachua County Department of Court Services was responsible for oversight and implementation of the training because of its previous responsibilities in handling grants geared toward similar mental-health goals, said {Boss Man}, the department’s criminal justice liaison.

For instance, the court services department was responsible for helping implement the Criminal Justice, Mental Health and Substance Abuse Grant from the Florida Department of Children and Families — a grant that aids mentally ill people at risk of entering the criminal justice system.

“That was the vehicle for how we learned about mental health first-aid training,” {Boss Man} said. “Then we entered a sort of brave new world of expanding it to over 2,100 additional public employees throughout the county through this whole training initiative.”

{Boss Man} said the program did not train employees of law enforcement offices like the Alachua County Sheriff’s Office or the Gainesville Police Department. Those departments have their own mental health and crisis training, such as the 40-hour Crisis Intervention Training curriculum.

He said law enforcement CIT programs are generally more in depth and aimed at the kinds of situations officers experience in the field. Meanwhile, the county’s MHFA program isn’t quite as rigorous.

According to {Boss Man}, one of the program’s cruxes is its five-step response plan, or “ALGEE,” which stands for “assess for risk of suicide or harm, listen non-judgmentally, give reassurance and information, encourage professional help and encourage self-help.”

He said this response strategy allows county workers to act as empathetic, non-judgmental supporters who can direct people in crisis to appropriate resources or counseling.

“Much of it is how you can help direct them to professional help,” {Boss Man} said. “Mental health first aid is not intended to be a substitute for professional counseling ... we’re not going to have people go out and engage in counseling on the street.”

The ultimate goal of the training was to expose county workers to the realities and prevalence of mental illness and to show them how they can act as supportive mediators for people in crisis in all aspects of their lives, whether that be in public offices or on the city streets, he said.

{Boss Man} said the MHFA training program will continue as new county employees are hired.
Due to COVID-19, the association will no longer hold an in-person award ceremony to promote this year’s Achievement Award winners.

But, {Boss Man} is hopeful that other counties throughout the nation will use Alachua County’s MHFA program as a template for similar mental-health initiatives.

“I believe that I’m fortunate — and we’re fortunate — that we live in a county that seems to consider behavioral health as an important priority,” {Boss Man} said.

I *DID* the Thing!