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Cynthia Germanotta,Hot Movies Archives known to most of the world as Lady Gaga's mom, is sitting in the lobby of a glitzy Sacramento Sheraton hotel. A few hours from now, her daughter will play a sold-out show a mile from here as part of her Joanne world tour.

But right now, Germanotta — who's dressed impeccably in a smart blazer, black skirt, and gold hoop earrings — just wants to talk about something called Mental Health First Aid.

SEE ALSO: What your Instagram posts might reveal about experiencing depression

The eight-hour training, often described as "CPR for the mind," helps people identify signs of mental illness and addiction in order to offer appropriate support and resources. When Germanotta took the class, she walked away feeling confident she could better spot the symptoms of psychological distress or crisis and shared the experience with her daughter. Together they decided they wanted to provide the same skills and information to as many people as possible.

So as we speak, upstairs from the lobby, 21 locals are learning about Mental Health First Aid from one of the best trainers in the country in a training sponsored by Born This Way Foundation and the National Council for Behavioral Health.

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"To us, [the training] is so vitally important because there's still a very large stigma around mental health, and around talking about it and providing help for people who are experiencing a mental health crisis," says Germanotta, who is the president and cofounder of Born This Way Foundation. "It's really been invaluable because there's just a comfort level knowing that if you see someone in crisis, you can have a conversation with them and hopefully determine how severe it is."

Born This Way Foundation and National Council for Behavioral Health partnered to bring trainings to every American city on the Joanne tour. Sessions in Sacramento, Omaha, Detroit, and Denver are free and others charge up to $75. The trainings are part of the foundation's "Channel Kindness Tour" that's on the road with Gaga. Some courses will be held on the day of the concert while others are scheduled within a week of a tour stop.

The goal of the partnership is to turn 150,000 people into "first aiders" by the end of the year. Overall, more than 1 million people have been trained in Mental Health First Aid since the courselaunched in 2008.

"[Lady Gaga's] foundation's mission is to spread kindness," says Betsy Schwartz, vice president of public education and special initiatives at the National Council for Behavioral Health. "And by working with Mental Health First Aid, they're really giving people concrete actions to be able to turn kindness into helping people who need it."

"One of the things you don't get at the end of the course is a cape."

The course is a guide to the risk factors and warning signs of mental health problems. It also rejects the stigma and stereotypes commonly associated with mental illness. Instead, the training gives participants the nonjudgmental language to ask about signs of distress, and the know-how to follow-up with support and resources.

First aiders are never supposed to act like a clinician and diagnose someone, nor are they meant to think of themselves as heroes who try to solve every crisis they perceive.

"One of the things you don't get at the end of the course is a cape," says Gina Ehlert, the course instructor.

Some of the participants at the Sacramento training hadn't realized Lady Gaga helped sponsor the event. After all, famous performers don't typically put their star power behind providing mental health education at each of their tour stops.

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But Tiana Parker, a 28-year-old diehard Gaga fan, signed up after receiving an invitation from Born This Way Foundation's email list. Unlike others in the room, including social workers and educators, she had no mental health background and doesn't need the course to be better at her job. Instead, she was curious about the opportunity because her idol endorsed it.

Watching Gaga talk openly about her emotional struggles, which have included bullying and post-traumatic stress disorder, helped Parker explore her own capacity for resilience.

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"I just felt really understood, and I learned that bullying can happen to anyone and you can overcome it, and no matter how successful you are, you can still feel the demons from it," she says. "And it's OK to say you're upset about this. It's OK to ask for help."

So Parker spent the day of Gaga's concert in a small hotel meeting room with strangers, talking about one of life's most intimate experiences: mental health.

The course isn't based on sharing personal anecdotes, but it does bring people together in group activities. In one exercise, participants split up into teams and compose a list of signs that indicate a person is listening or not being attentive.

It's a simple way of helping people understand just how much work it takes to be present in a difficult or uncomfortable conversation. That requires putting down the cellphone, gently asking questions, and signaling with non-verbal communication (think of a head nod or sympathetic hand gesture) that you're interested. It also means validating someone else's emotions.

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If a teenager says they'll never get over an ex-boyfriend or girlfriend, it's not the time to trot out a cliché about how many fish live in the sea or to insist they'll find love again. Starting with an empathetic remark like, "I'm so sorry this is happening," or "Is there anything I can do to help?" creates important trust.

That bond can help elicit details about what they're feeling or experiencing — essential information for identifying depression or suicidal thinking. The training includes a detailed "action plan" that first aiders use to assess if the situation is an emergency and, either way, how to respond.

"She wants to help other young people be much better equipped to deal with that than she thought we were."

The Mental Health First Aid course offered on Gaga's tour is designed to help adults talk to youth about their mental health. The subject touches both Germanotta and her daughter in deeply personal ways.

Germanotta recounts how Stefani (which is the given name Gaga goes by when it's her mother talking) was "taunted, humiliated, and excluded" in middle school, an experience that "shattered her sense of self-confidence" and led to anxiety and depression. The ripple effect reached well into her college years and beyond.

"Through that experience, she wants to help other young people be much better equipped to deal with that than she thought we were," says Germanotta.

Gaga also wrote a candid blog post, in December, about being diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder and how she found a path to recovery through psychotherapy and medication. Nine months later, that post remains one of the most visited pages on Born This Way Foundation's website.

When Germanotta walks into the hotel meeting room where participants have gathered for the training, everyone gets quiet. She and the executive director of Born This Way Foundation, Maya Enista Smith, thank the participants and ask why they've attended. There are several reasons: self-care, professional development, a desire to help others.

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Germanotta eagerly takes a group picture with the class and says she's texting it to her daughter. Smith meets Parker and encourages her to come to the Channel Kindness exhibit at the arena.

Before meeting her idol's mother, Parker said she felt like the course prepared her to try volunteering at a nearby LGBTQ center or at a nonprofit that provides crisis intervention services for survivors of domestic violence and sexual assault.

"I’ve learned so much," she says. "It's such a relief to learn that you can take this information and apply it to people in your everyday life — not as a mental health professional but just as a person who shows concern, who asks, 'How are you doing today?'”

Parker plans to reach out to local nonprofits about volunteer opportunities soon. But tonight, she's going to walk the mile to the arena, take off her maroon Chuck Taylors, put on blue lace-up ankle boots, and go watch her hero crush it.

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Topics Health Mental Health Music Social Good