What is Mental Health First Aid?
Regardless of your company size, 20% of employees in your company will have a mental health issue at some stage. Our Mental Health First Aid course offers an effective way that employers can breakdown stigma and create a space where staff feel able to share and seek help when they are struggling. Just as conventional first aiders administer help to a physically injured person, trained Mental Health First Aiders are equipped to deliver immediate care to a person who might be experiencing a personal crisis or distress in the workplace. We will help your employees spot the signals and develop skills to manage each situation as it arises.
Who Should Attend?
While any employees can attend, our strong recommendation would be that the course is made available to all employees, at every level of the organisation, where anyone interested can volunteer for the training. This is the best way of ensuring that attendees are enthusiastic and engaged in the training and dedicated to their role as a Mental Health First Aider.
Managers and HR personnel are more than welcome to attend and undergo the Mental Health First Aid training, as often times they are in the best position to spot signs of a mental health issue and to provide the necessary help. However the training should not be made mandatory for a specific group or team, as it is received better where there is buy in.
Benefits For Your Employees:
- A better understanding of mental health issues
- Practical skills to spot the triggers and signs of mental health issues
- Confidence to step in to reassure & support someone who is distressed
- An ability to have a supportive conversation & to signpost appropriately to professional help
Positive Impact Within Your Organisation
In having Mental Health First Aiders spread throughout the company, you are letting your employees know that you care about their mental wellbeing, that it’s okay to speak up if you are suffering and that there are supports available when you do. In this way you will have taken a significant step to making your staff more open to, and comfortable with, the topic of mental health. This is a positive intervention, particularly in relation to the role it can have reducing stigma.
Delivery Approach:
Our Mental Health First Aid course is unique, as it is only delivered by expert psychologists from within our network here in Ireland. The course is broken into 4 by 3-hour online sessions over a 2 week period and delivered by the same Psychologist. The course involves group discussions, exercises and activities helping those attending to really engage with the material, share their experiences, to put what they are learning into real-life context and practice their new communication and helping skills.
We can also deliver the course onsite within your company across 2 x 6 hours days, which can be delivered for up to 20 people (more than the digital maximum as it is easier to engage people in the interactive elements of the training when it takes place in person).