Thanks to a $600,000 grant from the federal government’s Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, RWJBarnabas Health will be bringing mental health first-aid training programs to Ocean County, including ones to help military service members, veterans and their families.
“We have been doing mental health first-aid for four or five years,” Brian Preiser, manager of the Institute for Prevention and Recovery at RWJB, the organization that will be implementing the training program, said.
Preiser noted the Institute already provides mental health first-aid training for law enforcement and for adults working with youth across the state and now will do so for the military.
“We trained close to one thousand people in 2024 on the various version of this training and the response has been incredible,” Preiser said.
The military-focused mental health first-aid will initially roll out in Ocean County because RWJBH has strong relationships with its community leaders and because a large veteran population is concentrated there.
Preiser sees the military-focused program expanding next to Essex County and hopes it will eventually establish a statewide footprint which, he says, depends on funding.
“The training uses different scenarios in line with what military families experience, such as the mental stress of deployment or assimilating back into the civilian world when military service ends,” he said.
Preiser emphasized that this training focuses on early intervention and was developed by the National Council for Mental Well Being.
“They develop the curriculum, and they are the ones from whom we get training and resources,” he said.
As RWJBH gears up to offer this training, Preiser emphasized that the training program is free because all of the expenses are covered by the grant. He also said that larger groups interested in the training (his example was a VFW post) can book a private training session and not have to wait for a scheduled training session.
RWJBH is one of the largest providers of recovery services in the nation. They have specialists in all 12 of their hospitals and community-based recovery teams throughout the state. RWJBH also focuses on prevention, sponsoring or running programs throughout communities statewide.
For more information on the veteran-focused first-aid training program or to schedule a training session, call 1-848-329-0978 or email Brian Preiser at Brian.preiser@rwjbh.org.
