Evaluation of the xaʔtús (First Face) for Mental Health program at a youth residential addiction treatment facility

92) at an Indigenous-focused youth residential treatment facility. In the context of a single-arm, pre-post study, we observed that after completing a day-long First Face training, participants showed improvements in mental health/substance use knowledge and perceived competence to respond to a mental health crisis, as intended. These benefits were not limited to Native American trainees and spanned both clinical and nonclinical staff. Improvements in perceived competence to respond to mental health crises were especially strong among staff with relatively little experience in the field. Contrary to expectations, we observed no overall impact on mental health stigma, although direct care providers, when considered as an individual group, showed a significant reduction in perceived mental health threat from pretraining to posttraining. We conclude that although more rigorous research is needed, First Face appears to be a promising intervention for training staff to respond to mental health problems in the youth residential addiction treatment setting. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2026 APA, all rights reserved)

Addiction · Competence (human resources) · Context (archaeology) · Distress · Intervention (counseling) · Mental distress · Mental health · Mental health literacy · Population · Indigenous Health, Education, and Rights · Mental Health Treatment and Access · Psychedelics and Drug Studies