Mental Health First Aid

July 7, 2009 at 7:43 pm (Information) (Holidays, MHFA)

It has been a few too many weeks since my last “regular” blog update and I apologise in advance.

I have been exceptionally lucky to have taken a weeks leave in the amazing location of Lake Como in Northern Italy, where my partner and I ate a lot of food, walked alongside the lake and up mountain paths on average 10 – 15 kilometres each day, enjoyed fantastic views, and I ate the most delicious ice cream (blackberry flavoured) that I have ever tasted.

Apart from this little jaunt abroad I have also been busy being trained as an Instructor for Mental Health First Aid.  This is an original concept from Australia where, like physical first aid, every workplace should have a trained person responsible for dealing with people requiring initial assistance with their mental health.  For more information on MHFA have a look at this link:  http://www.mentalhealthfirstaid.csip.org.uk/

Along with 9 others, we completed phase 1, the two day training course to become Mental Health First Aiders, and we have just completed phase 2, a 3 day course where we had to learn the training materials and demonstrate our facilitation skills to our mentors.  I had to facilitate a session on anxiety, and as someone who has had a panic attack at work many years ago, where my colleague was so concerned that she took me to Accident & Emergency, I thought I’d have my “participants” role play a real life example of someone having a panic attack at work.  I’d like to thank my two actresses for doing such an amazing and convincing performance at such an early time in the day.  This is a great course and a definite must have for all employers.  I’m going to train all my staff and our service users in MHFA as I believe it really can make a difference to someone in a moment of crisis.

I have to run a session on psychosis next week and then (hopefully) I’ll be qualified (with other colleagues in the DIN consortium) to run our first MHFA sessions in Manchester in the not too distant future.  If you are interested in receiving this course then feel free to get in touch via this blog.

So in the meantime, I just need to get on with planning for The Roby’s Away Day next Tuesday (please be aware that they’ll be no one in the office for Tuesday the 14th July).

Kind regards,

Ben