Workshop takes hard look at mental health issues among youth

John Cammarata, director of Youth Min­istry for the Diocese of Paterson and a youth minister for 20 years, is finding that a resurgent point of discussion for those he serves involves mental health.

“Young people are much more willing to talk about mental health,” he says. “You can’t treat it like it doesn’t exist.

“In my line, if they’re not in good mental health, it’s an immediate roadblock to their physical growth. So I thought that was our obligation as a Church — to address far more than their spiritual needs.”

To that end, on Feb. 3, he’s hosting a one-day workshop called Mental Health First Aid at St. Paul Inside the Walls in Madison. Attendance at the $130 per person training is limited to 30, and the registration deadline is Jan. 15.

The goal is to train youth ministers and teachers to intervene immediately and in a non-judgmental manner with young people who have immediate crises.

Those are not limited to suicidal ideation. It also includes anxiety attacks, depression, and substance abuse disorders.

An uptick in teen suicide has been grimly documented. According to a report last year from the National Vital Statistics System, the largest percentage increase in suicide by males from the previous year was in ages 15–24 (22.4 to 24.1 per 100,000). An increase in the suicide rate for women in the same age group was considered statistically insignificant.

Leading the instruction will be Chad Sandifer, executive associate dean of the pharmacy school at Fairleigh Dickinson Uni­versity, and Dongmi Kim, an associate professor of pharmacy practice at Fairleigh Dickinson.

Sandifer says it will be his first instruction to a diocesan group. People he usually trains work for colleges and corporations.

Is empathy a requirement for those undergoing the training? “I’d say no,” Sandifer says. “But it requires an understanding of the difficulties faced by some individuals with cultural integration.”

“We’re not there to be therapists,” he says. “We’re there to recommend a care plan and for self-care later on after a crisis has passed. We also talk about drug use, alcohol use, and substance abuse. It’s a broad range of topics. We have a pretty good balance on what we bring to the training.”

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