Changing economic tides pose mental health risks for families

Saint Anthony – Haven for Hope staff are dealing with people at their worst, said David Hewett, vice president of transformational services.

A major focus is training and educating clients and themselves in crisis recognition and intervention.

“We have suicide prevention training, we have mental health days that our customers and employees can take at any time,” Hewitt explained. “All of our staff go through booster training and crisis intervention training. We know that many of our clients are traumatized. Sometimes they come from trauma, and we want to make sure that we don’t put it in an environment where we’re punitive and we want to make sure that someone is in trouble or in crisis, that we can intervene carefully and intervene.” “We need help rather than punishment.”

The changing economic tide has brought different types of people and families to seek help, which can sometimes hurt people.

“I think you’re seeing the stress, the multi-faceted stress of parents not being able to afford their children’s rent, being out of school for years, family instability, sleeping on different couches, moving from hotel to hotel.

Last week, emergency responders were called to the campus for an attempted suicide, which because of its narrow nature doesn’t often make the news. Hewitt said this is a rare occurrence. But there is a strong focus on educating everyone about the resources available.

Anyone in need can call or text the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 988 for confidential help.

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