TPC Journal-Vol 9- Issue 4-FULL ISSUE

The Professional Counselor | Volume 9, Issue 4 331 professionals and laypersons alike, the lack of knowledge and understanding of mental health not only contributes to the treatment gap, but also the considerable stigma faced by those who struggle with mental health issues. Taken together, the results suggest that the researchers and program developers can confidently endorse this program as one that leads to an increase in mental health knowledge and skills associated with mental health facilitation among both professionals and laypersons. In this way, the MHF program furthers the WHO’s (2013) Mental Health Action Plan goals of strengthening information systems surrounding mental health and clearly establishing a requisite foundation for the implementation of strategies and services. In its proposed actions for member states, WHO emphasized the importance of human resource development by “build[ing] the knowledge and skills of general and specialized health workers to deliver evidence-based, culturally appropriate and human rights-oriented mental health and social care services” (WHO, 2013, p. 15). Our findings also complement the positive evaluation feedback of participants. In particular, Van Leeuwen et al. (2016) found that participants appreciated the increased knowledge they gained, noting that it was beneficial to themselves as well as their community. Participants noted that they had an enhanced ability to better understand their personal and family members’ mental health and that the MHF training helped reduce community stigma. Examined in conjunction with the present data, this suggests that not only are participants objectively gaining knowledge about mental health, they are aware of what they learned and actively and intentionally applying that knowledge to help themselves, other individuals, and their overall community better understand mental health. Given that the present study also demonstrated that participants are gaining an enhanced understanding of MHF-related skills, the researchers are hopeful that with their knowledge of mental health, participants are likewise intentionally putting their facilitation skills into action to support those in need within their communities. Limitations and Future Research The present study provides a notable step in further documenting the effectiveness of the MHF program, yet the limitations of this research must be taken into consideration and used for ongoing program planning and research development. Using true-false repeated measures pre- and post- training assessment could lend itself to bias. Within such situations, the trainee may recall, implicitly or explicitly, the questions asked in the pre-training assessment and may be primed for remembering the information needed to respond to those questions. Similarly, although the findings were statistically significant, probability suggests that true-false questions are more accessible to educated guesses rather than a depiction of accurate knowledge. In this way, having a multiple-choice format test with possible case scenarios to assess application in greater depth might provide a richer depiction of the knowledge gained. The present means of assessment also are vulnerable to a ceiling effect, whereby those with the most knowledge around mental health would earn the maximum number of points on both the pre- and post-training assessment. Although the present testing level is the most adaptive to all knowledge levels, perhaps a greater breadth of questioning to assess more nuanced components of the MHF skillset might be more helpful in accurately assessing the knowledge and skills gained by those coming into the MHF program with more extensive mental health training. An additional limitation of the assessments specifically was the post-hoc distinction between the skills and knowledge components assessed in the MHF training. In the future, greater attention to developing questions specifically geared toward these two necessary areas will be more effective in discriminating such gains. One final limitation of the present study and an area well positioned for future research is the lack of specific data regarding how the knowledge and skills are being used following the training.