HOUSTON (KIAH)–Mental Health America of Greater Houston is the area’s longest-serving mental health education and advocacy organization that focuses on shaping mental health education in our community.

MHA works to:

• provide education and training for the community
• remove barriers of mental health care
• creates change in systems
• advocates for legislative solutions
• address the need for community mental health services
• helps link people to mental health services

Veterans are able to get support trainings through 4 different programs through MHA of Greater Houston:

• Military cultural competency training is an 8-hour course that’s for adults who work with a (Service Member, Veterans and Families) population and would like to explore peer support opportunities. The class provides mental health awareness of the challenges that are related to military culture and the impact is has on service members, veterans and their families. It’s also structured for volunteers or mentors that have served veterans and would like to explore peer and mentor support groups.

• Mental Health First Aid for Veterans Military Members and their Families: this is a course that will help veterans identify, understand, and respond to signs of mental illness and substance use disorders. The training provides you with skills needed to provide support to veterans who might be developing a mental health or substance use problem and get them the proper care.

• AS+K Training is a course that encourages ‘asking’ about suicide to help save a life. It provides those enrolled with an overview of basic epidemiology of suicide and suicidal behavior. This course is one-hour online and participants are trained to learn about the warning signs and behaviors that could lead to risks. This will include how to intervene to help support someone that might be at risk for suicide.

• Calm Training is a training to help reduce access to guns and medication to help reduce the risk of suicide. This is a FREE online course dedicated to reducing the methods people use to kill themselves. Topics covered would be identifying people who could benefit from lethal means counseling, asking about lethal methods access and working with the individual and their families to reduce the access.

If you or a veteran that you know is in need of any of these support trainings, contact Mary Kathryn Metyko at VBH@mhahouston.org.