Point Boro Teachers Working To Deal With Mental Health Challenges

POINT PLEASANT BORO – The school district is moving forward and has planned to work with Rutgers University and the Mental Health Technology Transfer Center (MHTTC) to deal with mental health challenges at the schools.

Meetings with the district’s task force were set to take place to complete resource mapping and comprehensive needs assessments, district officials said.

Thirty staff members were to be trained on January 16- 17 on"Youth Mental Health First Aid," which is an eight-hour course designed to train staff on mental health challenges and how to support adolescents in crisis and non-crisis situations.

A parent forum was expected to be scheduled, in addition to the possibility of training parents and
community members on Youth Mental Health First Aid as well.

The federally funded MHTTC is operated by Rutgers School of Health Professions on the Busch campus in Piscataway, according to Rutgers officials.

Established two years ago with a $4 million grant from the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, it is one of 10 regional centers created nationwide to bring evidence-based research and new approaches to mental health care, officials say.

The Rutgers center serves the Northeast Region, including New York, New Jersey and the Caribbean.

“There is a long lag in getting evidence-based research into the everyday interventions that are provided, and we are trying to shorten that,” Ann Murphy, associate professor in psychiatric rehabilitation at Rutgers School of Health Professions and co-director of the center, said in a press release. “People are going into the field not knowing the latest approaches in mental health.”