AUGUST 18 • 2022 | 31

BACK TO SCHOOL

G

oing through a mental health crisis 
as a teenager can be scary.
“Data shows that, typically, 
teens will go to another teen first,
” says Julia 
Cohen, who works as a youth mental health 
coordinator at Jewish Family Service (JFS). 
“
Adults aren’t going to be that first person to 
respond.
”
That’s why providing teens 
ages 15-18 with the proper tools, 
training and support to identify, 
understand and respond to signs 
of mental health and substance 
abuse challenges is so important.
To address that need and cre-
ate more resources in the Jewish 
community, especially for younger popula-
tions, Farber Day School will work alongside 
Jewish Family Service to first train staff on 
teen mental health, who will then take their 
knowledge to train teens at the school on 
how to respond with “teen mental health 
first-aid.
”
Representing Farber Day School at the 
training is school social worker Elana 
Miodownik (Mrs. Mio), who, 
alongside Cohen, will attend 
three days of training in August.
“Teen mental health first-aid 
is the most recent curriculum 
to come through the National 
Council of Behavioral Health,
” 
Cohen explains. She adds that 
similar models exist for youth 
and adult mental health. 
“It’s teaching teens how to identify and 
intervene when they have a peer who is expe-
riencing a mental health challenge or crisis.
”

AN INCREASE IN ANXIETY
At Farber Day School, Miodownik works 
with students in kindergarten through eighth 
grade, but often sees previous students who 
have transitioned into high school. “They’re 
still like my students,
” she says. “I have a deep 
connection with them.
”
This past year, she’s noticed many students 
in that age group experiencing increased 
anxiety. “One student happened to have a 
panic attack during school,
” she recalls, “and 
an ambulance came because they thought she 
was experiencing a physical health issue.
”
This was an eye-opening situation that 
caused Miodownik to realize that many teens 
weren’t equipped with the knowledge of how 
to address a mental health crisis. Paired with 
increased anxiety overall due to pandemic 
stressors, school shootings and more, there 
was a greater need than ever to offer mental 
health education to teen populations.
“I felt now is a really important time for 
our students to be able to recognize whether 
their peers are truly struggling,
” Miodownik 
explains, “and what they should do to inter-
vene for those things.
”

LEARNING HOW TO RESPOND
Strategies for teen mental health first-aid can 
include, but aren’t limited to, learning breath-
ing techniques and understanding when to 
alert a teacher for help. Teens can also learn 
common signs of panic attacks, such as shak-
ing and shortness of breath.
“I’ve had girls come into my office crying 
because they don’t know what to do for their 
friend and they felt like their friend was 
really suffering,
” Miodownik says. “They feel 

helpless that they’re not able to do anything 
and they also don’t know the proper adult to 
bring them to.
”
The ongoing COVID-19 pandemic pushed 
many teen mental health challenges to the 
forefront as well. “I think a lot of parents 
noticed while their children were home 
during lockdown how their anxiety was get-
ting exacerbated,
” Miodownik says. “There 
was more awareness and parents seeing 
it firsthand, as opposed to what we see in 
school.
”
This created a stronger opportunity for 
partnerships with parents to make teen men-
tal health first-aid and beyond a reality. Once 
Miodownik and Cohen complete their train-
ing, they hope to bring the curriculum not 
only to Farber Day School, but also to other 
schools and organizations in need that serve 
teenage Jewish populations.
For now, “my goal is to roll it out at Farber,
” 
Cohen says, “but I don’t think it’s specific to 
just Farber. I think we should be rolling it out 
throughout the whole Jewish community.
”
It would be an important addition to an 
already robust menu of mental health educa-
tion and suicide prevention trainings current-
ly offered in the overarching community.
“The idea is to add teen mental health first-
aid to our menu that we offer so when there 
is a school that wants to partner with us, we 
can add it to our array [of offerings],
” Cohen 
says. “It’s an untapped training intervention 
that fits into our goal to reduce stigma.
“The more we talk about it, the more we 
go to schools,
” she adds, “we can normalize 
some of this so that we can be better support 
to one another.
” 

Teen mental health first-aid 
teaches teens how to respond 
to mental health crises.

Farber Partners 
with JFS on 
Mental Health 
Initiative

Julia Cohen

Elana 
Miodownik

ASHLEY ZLATOPOLSKY CONTRIBUTING WRITER

Teens get together in UMatter, a club 
that is helping teens deal with mental 
health challenges.

