In today’s reality, we hear more and more often of people going through traumatic experiences, having to practice for the ‘incase of emergency’ scenarios, and listening to someone ask for help without knowing how to give them the assistance they need. Lydia Fraser, a high school senior at Marquette Alger Technical Middle College and a Jobs for Michigan’s Graduates (JMG) youth, is taking steps to be a resource for those in need.
When talking with Lydia, she spoke about the importance of being able to recognise the signs of a mental health emergency or crisis. She recently completed a course on Mental Health First Aid to better assist her peers, and learned a lot about what to do and how she could aid in those instances. She said knowing the signs and realizing if you are the right person to help in that situation is an important tool. In the future, she hopes to use these skills and the competencies she has gained through JMG to assist her in a career in the medical field - hopefully with children and adolescents.
Lydia was in the news to talk about and reflect on how this course has helped her in real life situations. She said the skills she gained from interview prep with JMG enabled her to better speak to the media about her experience and assisted her in articulating her thoughts as a panelist on Coffee with a Purpose. Lydia feels strongly that if more of her peers joined the JMG program, they would be able to gain even more traction with making a difference on these and other issues that are affecting our youth today. “The more voices we have speaking on these important issues, the wider an audience we can reach and the more people we can help”, said Lydia.
Learn more about Lydia and the certification she received taking the Teen Mental Health First Aid course.
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