The Peer Awareness Leaders Club, more commonly known as PALs, will host a Mental Health First Aid event from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. Saturday, Dec. 1, in Centennial Hall 211. The training requires pre-registration, but is open to all students, faculty and staff interested in learning how to assist those in need of mental health help.
To sign up, interested students and staff should visit https://www.wecarepeople.org/registrations and click on the Bluffton link to complete registration.
Lexi Sponseller, president of PALs. Photo by Nicole Centofanti
“The event is an eight-hour course teaching us how to help someone who is going through a crisis,” said sophomore Lexi Sponseller, a social work and psychology double major and the president of PALs.
The training will be taught by the Mental Health and Recovery Board of Allen, Auglaize and Hardin Counties. According to their website, their mission is “to reach out and provide vital prevention and treatment to any resident.”
As one of Bluffton’s student organizations, PALs seeks to bring awareness to relevant issues facing college students. One of the club’s most recent focuses has been providing education and events geared towards understanding and addressing mental health issues.
“I believe mental health is an issue on campus,” said sophomore resident advisor Kori Frey, a double major social work and psychology. “We all have a habit of preaching about self-care and making sure our peers are doing okay, yet we don’t follow either our own advice or we aren’t able to recognize when there is something going on.”
Frey identified the way mental health isn’t taken seriously as a reason why students should consider attending a training like Mental Health First Aid.
“We make a joke out of [mental health], so when someone is expressing symptoms, we think that they’re merely being humorous, and not actually struggling themselves. It’s sad to say, but we don’t practice what we preach, we just make comedy out of it,” said Frey.
Sponseller said the class can only hold up to 30 people, so those interested in attending the Dec. 1 training should sign up soon. Another training will be held on Feb. 2 during the spring semester to accommodate those who can’t attend the first session to space constraints or scheduling conflicts.
To sign up, interested students and staff should visit https://www.wecarepeople.org/registrations and click on the Bluffton link to complete registration.
“I believe the groups that will benefit the most from this training are the resident life staff, faculty, and campus leaders,” said Frey. “These are the people that hold the responsibility of the students’ and residents’ well-being. They need to be able to help these individuals in every scenario, including mental health.”
Editor’s note: Lexi Sponseller is a member of The Witmarsum staff
