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Rethinking Behavioral Health and Substance Abuse Education

April 16th, 2021
April 16th, 2021

Psych Hub is revolutionizing the way we understand behavioral health and substance use education. Their online courses focus on taking students from knowledge learned to behavior change, and their public-facing video library aims to improve mental health literacy while reducing the stigma surrounding seeking mental health care.

Online Training Can Improve Access to Mental Health Resources

Their platform has uniquely broadened mental health education access, including creating more informed community members within all communities. One of the newly launched learning solutions is a Mental Health Allies certification that is geared toward a general audience and includes modules on safety planning, suicide prevention, intimate partner violence, unconscious bias, substance use and opiates, and more. According to Marjorie Morrison, co-founder, President, and CEO of Psych Hub, “It’s a really good overview training for anybody to be able to be a good steward of mental health; whether to help yourself, a family member, a friend, or someone in the community. It can help anyone equip themselves with a better understanding of mental health and action items for different situations.”

Emphasize Evidence-based Treatment

Morrison expresses her hope that consumers of mental health become more informed and begin to demand evidence-based treatment in specialties. She explains, “Most behavioral health providers are generalists. We’re really working to encourage specialization in that field— depending on what the patient is facing, there are different interventions that are proven to be more effective.” She explains that educating consumers increases the demand for behavioral health providers to focus their practice on more specialties, providing better patient care.

Promote Understanding of Mental Health Needs

“With mental health, there’s no silver bullet—different interventions work for different people,” Morrison urges. “We have to all be accepting of each other; that it’s okay to not be okay and it’s okay to get help. And it’s okay for that help to look different and be different.” That is what Psych Hub hopes to do—to make this understanding, along with an improved understanding of the mental health issues we all experience, widespread.

This blog post is the final excerpt from the HealthStream article, “Psych Hub Reimagines Online Mental Health Education: An Interview with Co-Founder and CEO Marjorie Morrison,” available. Other installments in this series include:

  • Mental Health Conditions Exacerbated by COVID-19
  • How a Pandemic Prompted a Shift towards Telehealth and Online Learning
  • Psych Hub Resources Confront the Problem of Access

Helping Healthcare Organizations to Support Mental Health

Everyone has a role to play when it comes to supporting mental health. With the Mental Health Ally Certification Library (MHAC) from Psych Hub, you can equip staff members at any level in your organization to learn about critical mental health topics and gain actionable skills to help someone or themselves during difficult times.

MHAC offers five micro-certification tracks focused on critical mental health topics, including: mental health foundations, substance use, motivational interviewing, diversity and bias, and suicide prevention. Learners can complete a single track for micro-certification to focus in on a specific need for your organization or complete all five tracks and obtain the master Mental Health Ally Certification from Psych Hub. In addition to interactive courses, each track comes complete with several companion videos for both providers and patients. These short 3-5-minute videos are excellent for focused knowledge building, reinforcement, or refresher.

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