The Alabama Workforce Stabilization Program is a grant funded by the US Department of Education. Alabama’s Department of Commerce was awarded over $17 million, 3 year grant to implement a program to provide workforce development that meets the specific needs of employers across the state. Each participating company is able to provide new hire and/or on the job training to expand their employee’s skills. Each participant is awarded industry recognized credentials for the trainings they complete.
For our part, UA received a 2-year, $500,000 subaward for VitAL to work with the employers engaged in AWSP to provide Mental Health First Aid training to supervisors and managers within each organization. MHFA teaches participants how to identify when someone is facing a mental health challenge, how to approach the individual about it, and appropriate resources and assistance that can be offered to help that individual through the challenges they are facing. In the US, 1 in 5 adults will face a diagnosable mental health challenge each year. The earlier these challenges are addressed, the greater possibility of a positive outcome and recovery. The great thing about MHFA is that it is not about becoming a therapist; it’s about using skills we already have to see what is happening around us, and making a focused effort to do so, leading to positive intervention. For the companies we are working with, this specifically has positive impacts by reducing turnover, absenteeism, and on the job accidents.
VitAL’s goal is to train employers from 200 AWSP affiliated companies across the state, and up to 15 employers for each company, totaling up to 3000 individual participants.