Healthy Community Initiative

By Molly Titchenal as a Guest Columnist for the Northfield News

This fall, the Rice County Chemical and Mental Health Coalition kicked off the fifth year of a national Mental Health Awareness Training grant provided through the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration. The grant has allowed the coalition to sponsor and organize evidence-based training on mental health topics for community members and staff working at organizations across Rice County.

The training has been extremely successful; hundreds of Rice County residents have received free training in Mental Health First Aid during the past four years, and dozens of local people have been trained to lead the sessions. The eight-hour training teaches people how to help others who may be experiencing a mental health crisis. It also helps adults identify, understand and respond to signs of mental illness or substance abuse.

Both Youth and Adult Mental Health First Aid trainings have been offered for free, in English and in Spanish. During the 2025-26 school year, the grant is supporting teen mental health education for 10th graders in the Northfield and Faribault school districts.

During the past summer and fall, the grant also supported a Crisis Intervention Training refresher course for more than 40 local public service employees.

The MHAT training is thorough, but the coalition recognizes that not everyone can commit to an eight-hour in-person training. So HCI staff are now being trained to become Question, Persuade, Refer trainers. The 90-minute QPR training aims to reduce suicidal behaviors and save lives by teaching people how to recognize the warning signs of a suicide crisis and how to question, persuade and refer someone to help. QPR trainings have been scheduled for early 2026 with staff at the Northfield and Faribault Community Schools, the Northfield School District and Rice County.

The training is available to businesses, organizations and individuals at no cost to them. For more information, you can email me at molly@healthycommunityinitiative.org, or contact my colleague Ashley Gardner at ashley@healthycommunityinitiative.org. You can also learn more about QPR at qprinstitute.com.

The continued need for mental health training is supported by the most recent suicide data provided by Minnesota Department of Health (from 2015-2022). In Minnesota overall, the number of suicide deaths per year has not dipped below 720 since 2015, and it reached a peak of 843 in 2022. In Rice County, suicide deaths spiked in 2016 (9), 2020 (10) and 2022 (9). The rates are spread across age groups and are substantially higher for men.

The Mental Health First Aid and QPR trainings go hand in hand with another coalition effort called the Breakthrough Coalition. Formed in 2025, the Breakthrough Coalition aims to reduce youth substance misuse and support their mental health. Local leaders on two teams — one in Faribault and one in Northfield — work together to ensure young people and their families have the resources they need to thrive.

The coalition has been featuring profiles of Breakthrough Coalition members on social media. Follow us on Facebook and Instagram to learn more about how we’re supporting mental health in Rice County.