Reformed Church wants to train mental health first aiders
On the occasion of World Mental Health Day, October 10, zoom in on a new offer from the Evangelical Reformed Church of Switzerland (EERS).
World Mental Health Day, which is held every year on October 10 (here in 2019 in Geneva), aims to raise awareness of mental illnesses.
KEYSTONE/Martial Trezzini
“One in two people will suffer from a mental problem during their lifetime, it’s huge!” poses bluntly Bettina Beer, pastor and collaborator of the Evangelical Reformed Church of Switzerland (EERS). According to Roger Staub, director of the Pro Mente Sana association, which specializes in mental disorders, “every year in Switzerland, more than half a million people have suicidal thoughts”.
“It is more than ever necessary to raise public awareness of mental illnesses, which are still largely taboo”, continues Bettina Beer, at the initiative of the partnership signed, at the beginning of the year, between the umbrella organization of the Reformed Churches of Switzerland and Pro Lie Sana. The idea? Offer mental health first aid courses, such as the so-called Samaritan courses, which are compulsory for driving licenses.
The Ensa program, developed in Australia and imported into Switzerland in 2019 by Pro Mente Sana, aims to give everyone the keys to managing crisis situations.
“When someone hits their head on the ground and starts bleeding, almost everyone knows how to react. On the other hand, when we find ourselves faced with a person who is about to jump off a bridge, a person under the influence of drugs or his teenager in the process of cutting himself in the bathroom, most of us are completely destitute”, says Sophie Wahli-Raccaud, pastor and training manager at the Protestant Training Office (OPF), who has chosen to offer this course as part of her continuing education program.
A public service
“The partnership signed by the EERS allows the member Reformed Churches to organize these courses at advantageous conditions”, explains Bettina Beer. “The target audience is defined by the organizing Church. Initially, these focus more on ministers and collaborators, so that they raise awareness of mental health in their workplace, but the aim would also be to train the greatest number of people in mental health first aid.” And to recall that “the Churches have a mission that goes beyond the circle of their members, just like specialized chaplaincy, in hospitals or in registration centers for asylum seekers”.
Unsurprisingly, among the first batch of ministers who participated in the courses aimed at adolescents offered by the OPF, we find several chaplains. “We have a lot of young people who have psychic fragilities, it’s also age that wants that,” says Frédéric Steinhauer, pastor and chaplain of the Professional Center of Nord-Vaudois, in Yverdon and Sainte-Croix. “What we encounter the most in schools are anxiety attacks: young people who “freak out” and leave the classroom crying or who have tetany attacks.”
Act while keeping your place
Daniel Nagy is a youth pastor and medical chaplain in Fribourg. If he was skeptical about this course, he came out with the most praise: “The trainers do not promise a miracle recipe. The goal is not for us to take the place of a therapist, but for us to have the right starting reflexes in the face of an emergency situation.
If the training gives tools to identify the different pathologies, it especially encourages not to remain inactive. “Sometimes we find ourselves faced with situations where we have a role to play”, explains Daniel Nagy. “It’s not just a matter of noticing that a person is in bad shape, but of daring to approach them and speak to them openly, in order to then seek with them the best possible accompaniment.”
“It’s like with first aid courses, you don’t expect to be able to undertake a surgical operation”, formulates the training manager at the OPF. “It’s just about having the right basic reflexes and above all not making the situation worse with unfortunate words.”
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