CORVALLIS, Ore. — As mental health needs grew during the COVID-19 pandemic, educators and health workers across Oregon stepped up to help communities recognize and respond to those challenges.
At Oregon State University Extension Service, faculty in the Family and Community Health program have been leading that effort through adult Mental Health First Aid (MHFA), which is offered in virtual, in-person and hybrid formats.
“Mental Health First Aid is an evidence-based training program that’s targeted toward the general public,” said Ivan Estrada, assistant professor of practice in Family and Community Health and an MHFA trainer. “Anybody can attend it.”
The program teaches participants how to recognize signs of mental health or substance use challenges and how to respond in a supportive way. Participants learn a step-by-step framework for helping someone in distress, whether it’s a coworker, family member or neighbor.
“I can tell people are knowing where to get help. It’s a really good way to start having conversations that haven’t been had before.”
Oralia Mendez has been a longtime educator and trainer at the Oregon Center for Health Innovation since 2019. She saw the need become especially clear during the pandemic.
“We really saw an increase in the need for people learning some of the signs and symptoms and how to support people during a mental health crisis,” Mendez said. “That’s really what motivated me to become a trained instructor.”
Mendez said one of the strengths of the program is that participants don’t need a background in mental health to get involved.
“I didn’t come with a background in behavioral health, so I was a little afraid of that,” she said. “But then I learned that you don’t actually have to have any background… If you want to help, this is one way to do it.”
Training built for everyday life
The training includes about two hours of self-paced online coursework followed by a six-hour session led by certified instructors.
Some participants are individually recruited from the community, while others are from community-based organizations that partnered with OSU Extension, which allows employees to use work time to complete the training.
“A few people were uninterested at first because they were forced to be in the training, but then they ended up being the ones who participated the most and shared about situations they’ve seen around them,” Mendez said.
To make the training relatable, she would often use examples that reflect everyday situations involving family members, friends or coworkers.
Since 2022, Extension has also expanded offerings in Spanish, with the goal of reaching more communities across the state.
Mendez hopes the program can continue to grow to serve additional language groups, including Russian, Arabic and Indigenous communities.
“The more trained instructors that we have, the more that we’re able to get that information out to all the different communities,” she said.
How to make training work
Alongside delivering the program, Extension faculty have also studied how to make it more effective.
In a paper published in 2025, Estrada and his colleagues Sandi Phibbs, Dusti Linnell and Allison Myers, evaluated Oregon’s virtual Mental Health First Aid training using a framework called RE-AIM that looks at both outcomes and implementation.
Between September 2020 and August 2022, 406 people participated in the virtual training across Oregon. Estrada and his colleagues collected survey data from these participants.
Previous research showed that Mental Health First Aid improves participants’ knowledge and confidence. But Phibbs said their study focused on a different aspect: how to successfully deliver the training.
“There are hundreds of articles about the outcomes of Mental Health First Aid, but those articles didn’t tell people about the most effective ways to create and sustain a program that offers MHFA trainings on a large scale,” she said. “Our paper went into some of those details about how we implemented it, and the factors that we learned made it successful.”
The study found that virtual sessions performed similarly to in-person trainings, with participants reporting increased awareness of mental health signs and greater confidence in helping others.
It also highlighted practical lessons, such as the importance of creating a safe and supportive environment, especially when participants share personal or sensitive experiences.
The researchers recommend building clearer systems to ease instructors’ administrative burden, including preparation checklists and guidance for handling challenging moments during training sessions.
Expanding impact
The training is part of a broader Extension effort called Coast to Forest to promote mental health and prevent substance use across Oregon, supported by federal grants from the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s National Institute of Food and Agriculture and the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration.
Estrada said they also shared their findings with national partners that also conduct MHFA trainings, offering recommendations to improve the curriculum and program delivery.
After teaching the session for years, Mendez felt the learning experience came both ways.
“As an instructor, I also learned from our participants,” she said. “I learned new resources that I wasn’t aware of, or even challenges that maybe I hadn’t considered before.”
Trainers would meet to share strategies and support each other, from managing online engagement to handling sensitive content.
As the program continues to expand, Extension educators hope to make mental health knowledge more accessible and to encourage more open conversations across communities.
“There have been some participants who reach out afterwards and say, ‘Hey, can I get additional information on this resource you shared about?’” Mendez said. “I can tell people are knowing where to get help. It’s a really good way to start having conversations that haven’t been had before.”
For those who are interested in participating in MHFA training, visit the OSU Extension Service website to take an MHFA course or connect with a local trainer.
