Strafford County YMCA named a mental health friendly workplace: Seacoast health news
The YMCA of Strafford County becomes designated as a mental health friendly workplace
DOVER — The Dover Mental Health Alliance, a newly formed Strafford County coalition, is building mental health friendly workplaces one “Place” at a time. The YMCA of Strafford County, located in Rochester, was recently designated as a safe, judgement-free “Place” by the Dover Mental Health Alliance. This is the first DMHA Mental Health Friendly Work “Place” designation outside of Dover.
The YMCA of Strafford County offers programs that help children reach their potential, help families and individuals achieve better health outcomes and encourages everyone to get involved and help make their community a better place. For more information about the YMCA of Strafford County go to: www.graniteymca.org/locations/strafford-county.
The staff at the YMCA received Mental Health First Aid training which teaches people how to recognize and respond to someone who may be in emotional distress. The group also received ACEs (Adverse Childhood Experience) training, which dives deep into the neurological, psychological and physiological impact of trauma and how it relates to our biggest health and social problems such as substance use, housing insecurity and mental health.
Executive Director Rob Riley said: “The partnership with DMHA and the YMCA has provided some great resources and training for our staff. We have already seen so many opportunities to implement what we’ve learned and are serving our community better. Our staff have also learned better ways to focus on improving their own mental health.”
“The YMCA is a great location to become a DMHA “Place” as it already embodies the values of the Dover Mental Health Alliance. The mission and programming of the YMCA underscores the goal to achieve better health outcomes and encourages all community members to get involved in making their community a better place. It takes all of us to recognize that mental health is part of our overall health. We can all be part of the solution to normalize this conversation so people can get the help they need without feeling shame or discrimination,” Suzanne Weete of the DMHA said.
The DMHA “Place” designation is available to any business, organization, or institution that strives to support their employees, colleagues, and customers’ mental health. The DMHA vision is to create a culture that understands, embraces and addresses the complexities of mental health. The mission is to build a resilient community that is educated, responsive and conscious of the impact of mental illness.
The Dover Mental Health Alliance (DMHA) is part of the local, Strafford County non-profit community mental health center, Community Partners. For more information about Community Partners, go to www.communitypartnersnh.org. For more information about the Dover Mental Health Alliance and upcoming trainings, visit www.facebook.com/DoverMHA/, or email Suzanne Weete at suzanneweete@communitypartnersnh.org
This article originally appeared on Portsmouth Herald: Strafford County YMCA named a mental health friendly workplace
