Kate’s Blog

Time to Talk Day and being a Mental Health First Aider

Time to Talk Day – It’s imperative we talk about mental health to continue to raise awareness as sadly there is still too much stigma around it even today. We all have mental health, as ‘there is no health without mental health!’ Unfortunately, mental ill health can hold people back from getting help and support and being able to live fulfilling lives for fear of the stigma attached to it, which is not the way it should be in this day and age. I am proud to be a Mental Health First Aider and to be able to share my knowledge and skills and support my colleagues and try to make a difference.

I’m pleased to see that there are adverts on the TV and radio at the moment showing the importance of asking how people are and really listening to what they say, as it’s all too easy to casually ask how someone is as a standard greeting phrase.

Asking ‘how are you really?’ is something that I naturally do since I became trained in MHFA, especially if I can tell a person may not be coping. It may take a second or two, but people will usually open up and tell you how they really feel if they know you are truly interested and want to listen without judging them. Listening and communicating in a non-judgemental way doesn’t cost anything, but it could mean everything to that person at that moment.

Mental Health First Aider Training

The MHFA refresher training was really good despite the technical issues the facilitator was having at the time. It was useful to be able to refresh my knowledge on the tools that I had not used for some time and other ones I had forgotten about. There was also lots of time to have discussions, look at case studies and examples and to share experiences, which is really important.