Are you considering Mental Health First Aid Training
I am a Mental Health First Aid England Instructor and I have been delivering these courses for a number of years.
The courses are great. They provide knowledge and skills at a level for any member of the public who wishes to give initial first aid or assistance. It takes a holistic person-centred approach to mental health and mental ill-health.
I love my job facilitating however one thing that is always on my mind and that is super important to me as an instructor is “how are organisations recruiting?”
How are you choosing delegates that will become your Mental Health First Aiders?
The course covers certain topics that are discussed and can trigger individuals thoughts and emotions.
I have witnessed some companies choosing delegates to go on the course because they feel that they may be struggling and believe this course may be a quick fix for some! Yes we talk about to wellbeing tools and strategies that can help however this can open a whole can of worms for some and what happens after this can may have been opened…………….. (Back to the office or home alone with those thoughts…….)
The MHFA England course is not a place for people to resolve any personal issues, we need to be extremely careful when selecting delegates, we need to ask individuals would they actually like to attend the course?
There is no point sending people who are:
Not interested
The person who is a potential contributor to the stress.
First and foremost we need to be able to communicate openly and honestly about the areas that are discussed so it is important that if you do have staff members from the same company that they are comfortable and happy with each other to have open conversations on workplace wellbeing and how we can ultimately create a safer working environment.
We need to demonstrate leadership commitment to wanting to affect change and mental health training alone for a select number of people is not going to achieve anything for you. It is nothing more than a sticking plaster. Without support, consultation and co-operation from everyone then I believe the training will be a waste of money. People will not be reaching out to mental heath first aiders for a supportive conversation, because of the fear and stigma that still sadly exists!
I am all about education however it needs to be for the many and not the few and it is imperative that communication, safe recruitment and safeguarding are considered.
Organisations may be potentially adding more stress to an individual and therefore more risk as a result of training someone in mentalh health first aid.
There is a responsibility to be the first aider. Candidates for the role must be clear on what the course is.
The course is not to diagnose people. You cannot become a trained mental health professional in two days. The role is to act as a first intervention. You need to be very careful in this recruitment process.
A few questions for you to think about…………….
Do you have wellbeing policies and procedures in place?
What are you doing after the MHFA training?
What escalation processes do you have in place?
What about confidentiality?
Where is the support for the first aiders?
If this has got you thinking a little then please reach out to us at BMR Health and Wellbeing. We can support you in implementing mental health first aid training in your organisation, simply and the right way. If this is going to be done it needs to work towards a bigger solution This is a tertiary measure. You also need to consider how we stop people from becoming ill as a result of stress factors at work.