[humanser] across the board problems with accessible mental health materials

[Sarah Meyer]

Hi Lisa,
I am sorry to hear that you have been feeling ongoing frustration with
access issues to materials for training and education purposes. Maybe
I just missed this, but can you clarify what the exact training was
that you were going to be taking and who was providing the training?
What you described sounds very similar to an all-day training that I
attended today. It was Psychological First Aid (PFA) and Fundamentals
of Disaster Mental Health (FDMH).  These were classes offered
primarily for people interested in volunteering with the American Red
Cross or disaster mental health work, but the skills are transferable
to working with crisis and trauma response work in all kinds of
settings.

Anyway, when I contacted the instructor for the class a few weeks ago
to inquire about the structure of the class and any materials that she
would be using, she sent me PDF versions of the handbooks to make sure
they were accessible and wouldn't need to be adapted in any other
ways.  She said there might be some additional handouts, and I made a
note to check in with her closer to the date of the class.  Well, I
had a pretty rough week and didn't get around to emailing her until
yesterday, but I still got what I needed: she sent me her PowerPoint
lecture slides so I could follow along (because I specifically
requested them) and the handouts to which she had alluded a few weeks
ago.
I know it is hard to prepare for trainings especially with short
notice, but I would suggest reaching out to whomever you can find to
reach out to as soon as you possibly can when you find out about the
possibility of a training that you are interested in.  I would also
suggest being as specific as possible in your request.  For example, I
did not think to ask in advance for electronic versions of course
evaluations; it just didn't cross my mind.  We talked about it today,
and the instructor is going to send them to me, but hopefully in the
future I will remember to include this as one of my requests
(handouts, lecture notes/presentations, evaluations).

Anyway, I hope this helps a bit, and good luck.

Sarah