ST. CLAIRSVILLE — Wendy Ware, director of prevention and student support at the East Central Ohio Educational Service Center, said free training is available for the public.

Ware said during a during a Harrison County Wellness Coalition meeting that the Belmont County Suicide Coalition is hosting Mental Health First Aid and QPR training throughout the year. Ware said QPR stands for Question, Persuade and Refer.

“It’s like CPR but for mental health and suicide. So, it teaches intervening when somebody’s having a mental health crisis to get them connected to resources and services or help that they might need, but it also teaches you how to identify that somebody’s having a mental health crisis,” she said.

Ware said the QPR training takes about an hour and is entirely online.

Ware said people “never know” when they’re going to need knowledge of mental health first aid or QPR.

Kayla Straight, peer services navigator at National Alliance on Mental Illness Greater Wheeling, said she is one of the trainers for the Mental Health First Aid classes.

“So it takes you from warning signs and gives you an action plan on how to deal with somebody if you come upon somebody who’s having a mental health crisis. So whether that has to do with suicide, or if you’re having a panic attack, somebody who’s engaging in self-harm, trauma, thoughts of harming others, it gives you steps that you can take to help that person,” she said.

Straight said the classes are online and can take four to six hours.

“There’s like two hours of pre-work that kind of just gives you mental health basics. That way you kind of know when we use phrases or certain acronyms and everybody’s on the same page, education-wise. Then we take you through how to develop that action plan and how to use it and get people to help that they need. So I really love Mental Health First Aid. It’s what I teach most often,” she said.

Ware said the organization is offering adult mental health first aid for adults who want to help other adults as well as youth mental health first aid for adults who work with children.

QPR trainings sessions are scheduled for noon April 9, 1 p.m. Aug. 7 and 10 a.m. Oct. 7.

Youth Mental Health First Aid training is from 9:30 a.m. to 3 p.m. Sept. 19. Adult Mental Health First Aid training is from 9:30 a.m. to 3 p.m. May 21 and from 9:30 a.m. to 3 p.m. Nov. 12.

Anyone interested in attending a training course can register online at tinyurl.com/2jdv9nph or send an email to suicideprevention.belmont@gmail.com.

According to its Facebook page, the Harrison County Wellness Coalition is “a group of community members, treatment professionals, agency leaders and others who are committed to helping end the abuse of legal and illegal substances in Harrison County.”

Its next meeting will take place at 1 p.m. April 9 at the Puskarich Public Library in Cadiz. People can also join the meeting virtually on Zoom. The coalition will post the ID needed to join the Zoom meeting on its Facebook page.

The Harrison County Wellness Coalition usually meets at 1 p.m. on the second Tuesday of every other month in the meeting room in the basement of the library.

For more information, visit the Harrison County Wellness Coalition Facebook page or contact Ware by emailing her at wendy.ware@ecoesc.org.