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Mental Health First Aid Training
About 40% of adults experience a mental illness at some point in their lives. Unfortunately, despite this high prevalence of mental illness, only about 20% of people who have a mental illness seek help.
Mental Health First Aid (MHFA) is an internationally recognised course, licensed by MHFA Australia, that teaches lay people how to give help to those experiencing mental health problems before professional help is obtained if required. We employ a number of the MHFA instructors who are either in training or approved by MHFA England (or other UK country licensee). The 12-hour minimum programme standard aims to:
- Preserve life where an adult may be a danger to themselves or other
- Provide help to prevent the mental health problems developing into a
more serious state - Promote the recovery and maintenance of good mental health
- Provide comfort to a person experiencing a mental health problem
We provide the MHFA course in England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, in line with the official MHFA guidelines in these countries. If you would like to learn more, please contact us.
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The course teaches the symptoms, causes and evidence-based treatments for: depression, anxiety disorders, psychosis and substance use disorder. It also addresses the possible crisis situations arising from them and the steps to help.
Just as conventional first aid courses teach a series of actions under the acronym DRABC, MHFA teaches mental health first-aiders to use the acronym ALGEE:
Our course can be tailored (by addition) to meet the learning needs of participants of different age groups and professional status. We will research into your needs pre-course and ensure we address your specific issues.
who for
MHFA Training Courses
MHFA does not teach people to be therapists. However, it does teach people how to recognise the symptoms of mental health problems, how to provide initial help and how to guide a person towards appropriate professional help. If you are responsible for staff, interact with the public, or just want to improve your knowledge, MHFA is for you.
Some key groups include staff working with NHS Trusts, independent service providers, voluntary organisations, local authorities, employment support and community services, colleges and local employers. The course is not for specialist staff qualified in mental health.
“The KSL training was excellent. It was delivered in a relaxed but informative manner. We all learnt a great deal about ourselves, colleagues and the young people we work with. Since the training we have set up a working party and are writing a mental health policy for our students along with providing in house training for our staff. I would definitely recommend it to colleagues and other agencies.”
Shellie Willis, Director of Student & Parent Support, Astor College for the Arts, Dover, 2009.
costs
We sometimes offer course places to individuals – we can always offer courses and further support to organisations
Our standard fee for course places is £195+VAT per person. These rates include everything, including catering for the two days, manuals to take away and follow-up certification.
Organisations purchasing a course place for an individual to sample, which then go on to purchase the adult MHFA course from us, will get the fee they paid for that individual deducted from our price.
Organisations can now purchase adult MHFA courses for 6-16 people, tailored for their staff, volunteers or partners, for £1584+VAT per course in their own venues. Our organisational course rates all include pre-course and/or on-day registration and all other training administration.
If one organisation purchases a number of courses, e.g. for different area teams or local partners, we can assist them to become officially ‘kitemarked’ by MHFA England for a good mental health learning status, at no extra cost to them in the first year.
To purchase MHFA courses or to find out more, please contact us.
dates
Our next open two-day adult MHFA dates for individual bookings are:
We primarily sell courses to organisations, for dates they choose, but watch this space for the occasional course/places for individual registration.
TBC – Register here with code TBC
partners
We can do more than provide courses to organisations; we partner with them to identify mental health related training needs and support the development of their workforce learning and welfare, for example with RBL:
“I have just completed a two-day MHFA training course delivered by KSL. I found this incredibly useful and, more importantly, so did the frontline hostel workers on the course. As such I wonder whether more courses would be available for frontline staff, as I think these would be invauable to both the individuals and the project in general.”
James Lee, Strategy & Commissioning Manager, Supporting People Programme, Camden Council, London, 2009.
Link to our Training Exchange page
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