The phrase “living 10 for 2” is one that we often hear as campers and staff members look forward to their time at Jewish overnight camp throughout the year. The anticipation of being back at their summer homes away from home and making memories with friends that last a lifetime often carries them through the year. The pressures and stress from busy schedules and current events are paused and replaced with feelings of community, connection, and joy. This “camp bubble” is a space where campers and staff can work together and gain and grow new skills, confidence, and knowledge.

This summer, Jewish Teen Initiative at CJP was proud to partner with five Jewish overnight camps to bring Teen Mental Health First Aid (TMHFA) to the Greater Boston Jewish community as part of a broader effort to provide opportunities for teens to build knowledge and awareness and to reduce the stigma surrounding mental health and wellness. Through this pilot initiative, 133 teens were certified this past summer at Camp Pembroke, Camp Tel Noar, Camp Tevya, Camp YJ and URJ Eisner Camp, thanks to a partnership between Jewish Teen Initiative, CJP’s Mental Health Initiative, BaMidbar, and BeWell. 

Completed over two half-day sessions, TMHFA is evidence-based and teaches teens in grades 9-12 the skills they need to recognize and help their friends with mental health and substance use challenges and crises and how to get the help of an adult quickly. TMHFA is broken into a series of modules and helps teens:

  • Recognize early warning signs that a friend is developing a mental health challenge
  • Recognize warning signs that a friend may be experiencing a mental health crisis
  • Describe how to talk to a friend about mental health and seek help
  • Explain when and how to get a responsible adult involved
  • Discuss where to find appropriate and helpful resources about mental health challenges and professional help
  • Apply the TMHFA Action Plan to help a friend with a mental health challenge or crisis
  • Gain resilience when navigating mental health challenges throughout the year

Stacey Smalley, Kadima program director for the Cohen Camps, chose to include the TMHFA training to their staff leadership development curriculum for the summer because “the training provides our teens with resources and helps them to identify personal connections and strategies in incorporating the learning in their daily lives.” Following the training, “they know they have agency and can be a bridge to help their peers to get help.”

A teen in the Kadima program said, “One of the important parts of my summer was being trained in Teen Mental Health First Aid.” Other teens appreciated the opportunity to learn about available resources and support systems because “it’s really important to learn about different ways that I can support my friends.” Recognizing the importance of the program, another teen said, “Having this training was extremely helpful as I frequently see and hear about friends navigating mental health challenges. Now I know more about how I can help them.”

Feedback from their peers echoed these sentiments. By the end of the program, many teens reflected that they had remembered the statistic shared in the training that one in five teens experience mental health challenges. This statistic serves to both destigmatize mental health challenges as well as show the importance of the information the teens were learning and the resources they are now prepared to access. When providing feedback, they also expressed confidence in their abilities to ask their friends if they are struggling with their mental health. During the training, the participants realized that directly asking a friend about their mental health is challenging, but practicing it together, as a community, made it easier.

Erika Lilienfeld, assistant director at URJ Eisner Camp, described seeing the junior counselors (JCs) “embrace the message of TMHFA wholeheartedly, taking the lessons from their training and conversations with Brett Lubarsky, director of the Jewish Teen Initiative at CJP, and Adam Karp, clinical fellow and educator at BaMidbar, who facilitated the trainings, and applying them in real time with empathy and precision.” The JCs “didn’t just learn new strategies through the TMHFA training; they internalized the values behind them—the importance of understanding, supporting, and guiding our campers and their peers in ways that meet their individual needs.”

Lilienfeld was happy with how the training connected with the camp’s mission and “reinforced the value of seeing each camper and peer as a unique individual with their own story, needs, and potential.” The training, she says, “was a powerful reminder of the impact we can have when we lead with compassion and purpose, guided by both our Jewish heritage and a deep respect for the dignity of every person.”

After the training sessions, the teens showed their newfound knowledge and skills to the rest of the camp community by chanting “Look! Ask! Listen! Help your friends!” at announcement time in the dining halls. The phrase, which is the action plan identified through the training course from the National Council for Mental Wellbeing, sums up everything the teens had learned: how to look for signs of distress in their friends, how to ask if they need help, how to listen to their responses, and how to get them help. The volume at which they shouted their cheer reflected the confidence they had in themselves to use their resources and ask for help to make a difference in their communities.

Additional mental health resources and organizations can be found at jbtns.link/wellness. Contact Brett Lubarsky at CJP or Adam Karp at BaMidbar to learn more about how you can bring training opportunities to your community.

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