We are not accepting counseling clients or requests for mental health educational offerings at this time. If you are experiencing a crisis, please contact King County’s local crisis clinic, Crisis Connection’s 24-Hr Crisis Line at (866) 427-4747. You can also call the new national 9-8-8 Suicide and Crisis Lifeline. If it is an emergency, please go to your nearest emergency room.
In an era of increasing anxiety, depression, and other mental health challenges, join JFS for these empowering trainings that build familiarity and skills to support young people and adults in your community. These nationally recognized courses are designed to give participants the skills and confidence to help someone who is struggling with common mental health concerns in addition to mental health crises.
JFS 2022 Board President: On Mental Health, Youth, and Parenting
A Workshop for Jewish Teens
This 1.5 hour, in-person, interactive workshop for Jewish teens focuses on addressing antisemitism. This offering is designed to support Jewish teens to identify and share their experiences of antisemitism in a creative and open environment. We will build space for differing opinions and understandings of antisemitism and its impact, practicing both individual and collective responses. The goal of this workshop is to encourage creativity and resiliency in the face of complicated and painful conversations, supporting Jewish teens to continue these explorations in their communities and families. The workshop is best suited for 12-18 participants, but flexibility is an option.
ASIST is recognized as the world’s leading suicide intervention workshop. Participants learn to identify when someone may be at risk of suicide and to work with them to create a plan that supports their immediate safety.
This course is open to anyone age 16 or older.
National Website: ASIST
Designed with colleges and universities in mind, this eight-hour training teaches participants to recognize the symptoms of emerging mental illnesses and to help young adults in mental health crises. Participants will learn about the impact of campus culture on mental health and specific stress and risk factors for students.
The course may be one or two days in length and is open to anyone age 18 or older who regularly interacts with youth on or off campus.
National Website: Higher Education Mental Health First Aid training
This two-hour workshop is intended for high school students and adults who support them. Participants will learn about mental health issues affecting teens and young adults, how to link students to mental health support as well as crisis and non-crisis resources. Participants will also learn about self-care, and how to further improve their mental health knowledge.
This one-hour workshop for teenagers will introduce key concepts in navigating mental health in themselves and their peers. We will explore simple ways to understand common diagnoses and share strategies for managing symptoms. We will address mood disorders (depression and anxiety), substance use and abuse, trauma, and neurodiversity (ADHD and autism spectrum). This workshop can be delivered virtually or in-person.
The COVID pandemic has – and continues to – deeply impact all of our lives. We are all grieving for the people we’ve lost and the lives that have been forever changed. It has caused disruptions to the individual and community rituals that offer us meaning. And the way society frames and talks about grief, especially in relation to the pandemic, can also leave us feeling confused, disembodied, and in a state of pain. This virtual workshop led by Shaida Hossein, Director of Mental Health Education, and Kelsey Schulman, LSWAIC, Mental Health Therapist & Intake Specialist, will explore new approaches to support complex feelings around grief. We will engage in activities to help us make meaning from our individual and collective grief, and share supportive resources to recognize and honor our experiences as well.
This free, virtual training (5.5 hours) teaches attendees about mental health issues, how to identify a person who may be in crisis, and how to start a conversation with a someone who may be experiencing a mental health challenge. This interactive course focuses on increasing participants’ confidence levels to help individuals in distress. It also prepares participants to identify multiple types of professional and self-help resources.
Being a teenager can be hard—and so can being a parent of one, especially during a global crisis. Everyone deserves a little extra support right now, and we’re excited to start offering virtual Parent Coaching sessions. These free sessions are designed for parents and caregivers of teens and young adults. Over the course of your sessions (1-3 available), we’ll explore managing COVID-related stress and coping, strengthening communication skills and navigating peer and romantic relationships. If you are interested in this new offering, please begin the intake process by emailing cas@jfsseattle.org that you are interested in parent coaching.
Burnout now dominates cultural conversations around school and work. Students and workers alike share that they feel like they are expected to uphold pre-pandemic standards, while feeling disengaged from life and managing chronic mental health issues. In this workshop, explore aspects of yourself in relationship to school or work. The more you know about yourself, the better equipped you will be to face the world from a position of understanding and realism–ready to improve in some areas and to shine in others, while practicing self-compassion. In this workshop, you will be able to:
In this training, participants will learn the TALK steps (Tell, Ask, Listen, and KeepSafe) to prevent suicide by recognizing signs, engaging someone, and connecting them to an intervention resource for further support.
This four-hour course is open to anyone 15 years or older.
National Website: safeTALK
This introductory training teaches the warning signs and risk factors for suicide and how we can help prevent this leading cause of death. Participants will learn national and state suicide statistics, the causes of and risk factors for suicide, information about effective prevention, how to offer help and identify people at risk.
Open to all ages.
National Website: Talk Saves Lives
tMHFA (Teen Mental Health First Aid) is a training program for teens, launched by the National Council for Mental Wellbeing in partnership with Born This Way Foundation. It teaches teens in grades 10-12, or ages 15-18, how to identify, understand and respond to signs of mental health and substance use challenges in their friends and peers. In addition, the program teaches teens about the impact of school violence and bullying on mental health, and how to seek the help of a responsible and trusted adult.
How tMHFA can help:
For many students, the turmoil and unpredictability of the past couple of years and the change of going back into the classroom have magnified their anxiety. Although 65% of students say they prefer in-person learning, school comes with stressors as well as benefits. In this workshop for staff supporting students, you will be able to:
This one-hour workshop will provide psychoeducation on the causes of anxiety, addressing the very real fears today’s teens are facing and the ways those fears can begin to grow out of control. We will take into account environmental concerns such as global warming, school shootings, radicalizing politics, and academic pressures, as well as the impact of intergenerational trauma. Participants will be given opportunities to share strategies for managing anxiety that have worked for them, as well as the barriers they find when trying to live the life they choose alongside their anxiety. This workshop can be delivered virtually or in-person.
When you feel overwhelmed, your first instinct may be to first remove things that help your emotional, mental, and physical wellbeing to focus on responsibilities, but recognizing this is when we need self-care even more as an act of survival. Introducing, maintaining and building self-care into your daily life can get us through difficult times; we can go from surviving to thriving.
Right now, we are adjusting to a new phase of pandemic life, and it is critical to be thinking holistically about our wellness. In this one-hour, interactive workshop, you will have the opportunity to explore why self-care is important, recognize ways to care for yourself, and practice building a resiliency mindset. You deserve self-care, and we all can benefit with finding tiny ways to be kinder to ourselves.
Supporting Teens Navigating Mental Health Challenges
This is a workshop for professional staff interacting with youth. The goal of this workshop is to support professionals to identify the capacity of their role in relation to the youths they serve, and to understand the importance of staying within the borders around that role. We will build skills around recognizing when professionals are being activated and/or dysregulated, and we will acknowledge and address the grief that arises when they are unable to respond to every problem youth share with them. This workshop can be delivered virtually or in person and can run from 45 minutes to two hours.
This free, virtual training (4.5 hours) gives attendees the skills to provide initial support to adolescents (ages 12-18) who may be developing mental health or substance challenges, or who are in crisis. Participants will have the opportunity to decrease stigma around mental illness and substance use, increase mental health literacy when working with young people, and serve as a vital link between youth and appropriate professional help.
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