FMHI and PII Collaborate to Host 1st Mental Health First Aid for API Community
On Saturday, April 21st, the Filipino Mental Health Initiative(FMHI) and Pacific Islander Initiative(PII) welcome all to attend this upcoming Mental Health First Aid (MHFA) training for the Asian American and Pacific Islander communities.
This training is the standard MHFA training, but also incorporates Asian- Pacific Islander (API) culturally-responsive material: giving participants an opportunity to learn about how to help friends and family members, who may be experiencing a mental health condition or crisis, and get certified.
This event is of huge importance for San Mateo County’s API community for a few reasons. SMC’s API community continues to have a lot of stigma around mental health; there remains a division between SMC’s API community; and there is not much available data and resources around mental health for the community.
The goals of this event are to:
- Decrease stigma around mental health in the API community
- Build solidarity among APIs
- Bring visibility to API communities to gain more data and resources around mental health
According to Dannyboy, Co-Chair of the PII and The Office of Diversity and Equity‘s PI Outreach Worker, “The PI community is very invisible underneath the API label. The fact that my position exists shows there is a clear need for targeted outreach in the PI community, more data and resources.” In addition to this event being a great opportunity for more Health Equity Initiative partnership, he hopes this event will begin bridging the gap for the API community by showing examples of solidarity.
A huge thank you to Filipino Mental Health Initiative and Pacific Islander Initiative for coordinating this event and for responding to the needs of San Mateo County’s API community.
Please share this flyer with your networks or for anyone you believe might be interested!
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