Patterns of Protective Factors in an Intervention for the Prevention of Suicide and Alcohol Abuse with Yup’ik Alaska Native Youth

Community-based participatory research (CBPR) with American Indian and Alaska Native communities creates distinct interventions, complicating cross-setting comparisons. In this study, coding CBPR intervention activities from three communities for protective factors and latent class analysis identified five patterns of exposure to protective factors: Internal, External, Limits on alcohol, Community and family, and Low probabilities of all protective factors. Patterns differed significantly by community and youth age. Standardizing protective factors by the functions an intervention serves instead of its form or components can assist in refining CBPR interventions and evaluating effects in culturally distinct settings

An Evaluation of Youth Mental Health First Aid Training in School Settings

Youth Mental Health First Aid (YMHFA) is a training program designed to help adults working with children and adolescents identify and respond to youth who are experiencing mental health problems or are in crisis. YMHFA is being implemented in a number of educational, child welfare, and juvenile justice settings across the country with little evidence of its effectiveness. As part of a broader mental health program implemented in five schools in a southeastern county in the USA, YMHFA was provided to school personnel over a 2-year period. This study presents the results of a pretest/posttest evaluation of the YMHFA training. In general, results provide preliminary evidence of the effectiveness of the YMHFA training. More specifically, results highlight the importance of YMHFA training for personnel who have never received mental health training/education and for those who do not have experience working with vulnerable youth populations