Mental Health First Aid North East

I have taken most of April off from travelling, to recharge batteries and regroup. The only course I agreed to present was one on the doorstep for a group of artists working on a project here in Darlington aimed at helping people experiencing mental health problems. It was held at Darlington Arts Centre, which is a building I have had a close association with for nearly 20 years, and although the room was a little cramped we had a really good couple of days.

This is only the second course I have presented in Darlington. The last time was actually my first course, held for the Salvation Army at the local hostel, back in December 2007 on two of the coldest days of the year. On top of that the heating chose to fail and we were kept going by constant drinks and bowls of soup being brought from the kitchen.

You may remember I recently presented a course in Barnsley on behalf of Community Links for local business people. One of the group has written a really good article on MHFA for his trade jounal, British Baker. You can read it here. It's great to get this kind of feedback.

You can find out more about Mental Health First Aid by visiting the Bill Cunningham MHFA Training site at www.mentalhealthfirstaidnortheast.co.uk

The end of March was very busy with courses in Castleford, Wakefield and Barnsley. The first two were very interesting in that they were for police and police support officers. They had all been sent on the course and for the most part did not know what to expect. However at the end of their two days learning about Mental Health First Aid the feedback from both groups was really positive, as they all realised that that they regularly came into contact with people experiencing a mental health problem as part of their work. They also appreciated how useful the training could be outside the workplace.

The course in Barnsley was for a small group of employers. This was really encouraging as it was one of the first times that I have presented to such an audience. MHFA should really be seen as being as important as physical First Aid in the workplace.

I'm taking a couple of weeks off now. My next course is actually in Darlington , for a group of artists working on a project using art to help people with mental health problems.

I will be training instructors in Newcastle soon and have just been asked to train a group in Liverpool as well.

You can find out more about MHFA and Mental Health First Aid training by visiting my website at www.mentalhealthfirstaidnortheast.co.uk

The main news of the last month is that I have been appointed to the MHFA England National Training Team. This means that I will be one of the people that trains the instructors. My first course will be on the doorstep, in Newcastle in May, working with National Lead, Dave Belshaw, who trained me. Quite a step. I'm really looking forward to it. Particularly as this first course will be held in the glamourous surroundings of one of the Executive boxes at St James Park.

You can find out more about MHFA and Mental Health First Aid training by visiting my website at www.mentalhealthfirstaidnortheast.co.uk

March has been very busy and it has been difficult to post.

4 & 5 March saw me in Sheffield at the PCT building, which is an impressive high rise near Meadowhall. The centre of Sheffield turns out to have been knocked down recently, which creates havoc for SatNavs, which meant Miss Diane had real problems. Although the venue was only a couple of miles from my hotel the revamp, together with changing one way systems and bus lanes, meant that it sometimes took 45 minutes to find my way home.

On 9 & 10 March I was in Leeds at TV Centre, two days after the announcement of the massive job losses there. I have a good friend who has lost his job on Heartbeat and really sympathised. Although ITV had arranged the course they had opened it up to organisations all over the Leeds area and the mix made for a really entertaining two days, despite the bad news.

The following day I was back in Sheffield at the PCT building with another interesting group. I have to say, no Mental Health First Aid course is the same. The experiences and insights that trainees bring to the group make each unique, and for me endlessly fascinating.

The end of last week and the beginning of this have been spent in Castleford and Wakefield training, for the most part, Police Officers and support staff. This was really encouraging as, at the beginning off the courses, most said that they had been TOLD to attend. This could have made for some resentment but at the end of each courses the groups expressed a real appreciation of the things that they had learned and a new confidence in being able to use this in their front line roles.

I've just returned from an interesting meeting in Liverpool which may mean more courses in that area. I'll keep you posted.

You can find out more about MHFA and Mental Health First Aid training by visiting my website at www.mentalhealthfirstaidnortheast.co.uk

The second set of days for Merseyside Fire & Rescue and Sefton PCT were held in a health centre in Southport. As you might know I was born on Merseyside and spent a lot of time there as a child. Southport sticks in my memory as the first place I ever saw, or went on, a Bouncy Castle. It's changed a bit I can tell you. Lots of money seems to have been spent reclaiming land from the see and there is a wonderful lagoon crossed by secveral brides that separates the town from the sea. My hotel was right beside the pier that extends, as you might expect, right out to sea and all the way back in to town. It really is very impressive.

The course was in a recently built Health Centre and though the room was small the two day twos were very well received. A a result I will be returning to Liverpool soon to discuss presenting other Mental Health First Aid courses and have been given useful contacts with Fire & Rescue Services nearer home.

Last week I was back in Grimsby presenting an MHFA course to NE Lincs council personnel. Most were involved in support sevices for schools and frequently had to interview parents that might be exhibiting signs of mental health problems. Areally good group and a pleasure to be back in  Grimsby. I find the people really friendly and as I have a lifelong love of ships it's thrilling to have time in a port with the occasional glimpse of an ocean going trawler.

I'm off to Sheffield tomorrow. March is going to be very busy so I may have to post sporadically, but it's all fun.

You can find out more about MHFA and Mental Health First Aid training by visiting my website at www.mentalhealthfirstaidnortheast.co.uk

Sitting at home after a busy week. Monday morning saw me up at the crack of dawn travelling from Darlington down to Goole to present a Mental Health First Aid course. The trusty Citroen C1 was heavily loaded with the new box on the passenger seat and a flip chart stand, flip charts, manuals and luggage stuck in the back on top of folded seats. I cannot complain though as the little deisel carries me all over the country and hardly ever seems to need filling up.

The course in Goole was fun, held in an old school building that has been converted as a community resource centre. We were holding two courses there on the Monday and Tuesday, the other being presented by a colleague from Community Links. It was interesting to compare notes about how the courses were being received at breaks.

Trainees were a mix of health trainers PCT staff and I'm happy to say, Police Officers. It was great to be able to get information about mental health and mental health issues across to them as the police often have to deal with people in crisis. It was also really useful to find out about procedure the police use in trying to access help for people in distress.

On the Tuesday night, rather than heading back North as usual, I followed the M62 right across the country to Liverpool to present two Day One's to Merseyside Fire & Rescue Service and Sefton PCT on the Wednesday and Thursday. Wednesday morning was marred by finding that the car had been broken into the night before. Nothing had been taken (I always take everything of value into the hotel) but the front passenger seat window had been smashed in. I managed to arrange for autoglass to fix it during the day and I got a taxi to Croxteth Fire Station. Luckilly I was only a little late and the day went very well. The following day was at the Fire Service HQ in Bootle.

I have to say I am full of admiration for the kind of work the Fire Sevice do on Merseyside. There are all kinds of outreach initiatives to try and reach young people, including one in which they are trained to be junior firefighters. Beats the Scouts every time.

I'm finishing both courses at another venue in Southport next week, and despite the stress of the car incident I have to say I'm looking forward to it.

Weather forecasts on the Thursday afternoon left me expecting a very difficult journey back to Darlington. However, the first snow I saw was in the centre of town at the end of the journey. The only thing that had been stolen from the car was the holder and charger from Miss Diane (my SatNav) so the main challenge had been finding something to stop her sliding across the dashboard. One advantage of being in training is that you always have BluTack with you and I can recommend it in a crisis.

You can find out more about MHFA and Mental Health First Aid training by visiting my website at www.mentalhealthfirstaidnortheast.co.uk

I've just come to the end of a quiet,but productive week. As I explained in my last post things become very busy from the second week in February so I have been gathering my resources in more ways than one.

I'm generally not the most organised of people and I have to admit that up till now I have been arriving at courses with all that I need to present (handouts, manuals, projector laptop and speakers etc etc) in a variety of different boxes and bags. This can make it quite a performance getting things into the room in which I am presenting, often involving multiple trips to and from the car. I remember one course, in Northumberland County Hall, where setting up felt like an assault course.

Well, last Saturday I went out to our local Staples and found exactly what I needed to solve the problem. A large partitioned plastic box that allows for suspension files.This means that I can carry handouts , projector, speakers etc all in one. The only potential problem was the  size and weight. This was solved by a trip down to York the next day (to deliver two stuffed birds of prey to a friend, but that's another story). We wandered into Lakeland Plastics and I found a sturdy little fold up trolley, complete with bungee cords, for under a tenner. The box fits nicely on the trolley and hey presto.

I've also spent some time looking at the course resources and how I can make them more user friendly, both for myself and for participants. We hand out a lot of feedback forms at the end of a course and I always take a lot of notice of the comments made on them. Last May someone commented that continuity suffered as a result of me having to jump between powerpoint and the DVD we carry. I took this on board and found some video software that allowed me to upload the video clips onto thehard drive of my laptop. This allowed me to leave the DVD in my bag as back up.

However I still wasn't completely happy with this as I still had to jump between programs. I solved this this week by finally embedding the video clips into the body of the Powerpoint presentation. I also found some video software that enabled me to edit one clip to cut a section that was completely out of context to the question that was being asked.

I'm wise enough to still have Version 1 on a memory stick that I carry with me but I'm quite eager to test this out at my next course.

So, fourteen months in I'm finally starting to feel organised. I've even spent some time in the office developing a proper filing sysyem to collate all the information I need about upcoming courses.  This means that I can lift the file for a course out of the cabinet, tell Miss Diane the postcode of the venue (Miss Diane is my trusty SatNav) put the file in the box and away we go.

The other thing that happened this week is that I finalised arrangements with a group at my local Arts Centre to present a course to their workers there. It's an interesting project that involves artists working with people with mental health problems. The organisers are keen that the artists should be properly trained to understand mental helth problems, spot the signs and symptoms of a problem developing and be able to guide a person to appropriate professional help.

We are now looking at dates in the third and forth week of April.

You can find more information on Mental Health First Aid at my website www.mentalhealthfirstaidnortheast.co.uk

I was back in Halifax this week presenting an MHFA course to workers at a women's centre there. Security was high as the centre deals with victims of domestic abuse and there were certain restrictions on where men could and could not go, which was understandable.

The group were enthusiastic and a real pleasure to train as they all realised that their work regularly involved them working with people suffering from mental health problems and really wanted to be able to spot signs and symptoms and guide people to appropriate help.

I'm now in the quiet before the storm in that I am taking some time off before a very busy period. In February I'll be in  London, Goole, Liverpool (twice) Wakefield and Grimsby. March is also busy with trips to Sheffield (twice), Leeds and Wakefield (twice). Things seem to be taking off and demand since the conference has been growing fast. I'm also in talks with my local Arts Centre about running a course here in Darlington.

You can learn more about Mental Health First Aid by visiting my site at www.mentalhealthfirstaidnortheast.co.uk .

Another trip to Humberside last week to present an MHFA course to a Christian Community in the Greathead area of Hull. The group are responsible for 4 churches in Hull and run things on a monastic model, rather like the Iona Community. Responsibilities included supervision, and a great deal of physical work on, the £450,000 restoration of one of the churches.

The church hall in which we held the course was rather cold, as the heating was being installed this week, and we started each day in our coats until the old system got going properly. I was reminded of the first course I presented in 07, in a Salvation Army hostel TV room on the coldest day of the year, with a broken heating system. On that course we were regularly treated to bowls of hot soup from the kitchen next door  to keep us warm.

This time it was rather warmer but we were still treated to wonderful lunches prepared by the Vicar herself.

The church came equipped with a screen that pulled down from the ceiling. The bottom was therefore rather a long way from the floor and as a result I initially found it hard to project presentations on it. This was solved by balancing the projector on a pile of prayer and hymn books.

That's the thing I really do enjoy about presenting  Mental Health First Aid courses. They can be held anywhere and for anyone. I have presented courses in plush, state of the art surroundings, with fantastic audio visual facilities, and I have also presented them in what were little more than large sheds. And it really doesn't matter because it is the people who attend that make the course, with their enthusiasm to learn more about mental health and mental health issues, and the personal stories they bring.

You can find mor information on Mental Health First Aid by visiting my website at  www.mentalhealthfirstaidnortheast.co.uk

The first two days of this week were spent presenting a Mental Health First Aid course for housing officers in Halifax. It was quite a large group of 15 people. Normally Community Links, on whose behalf I was presenting the course, would recommend that two instructors would be required for this number. This had in fact been the plan as I was supposed to be presenting with my colleague, Jenny Ord. We trained together and presented the first Community Links courses back at the beginning of this year. We can be a good double act.

However, Jenny phoned my over the weekend to tell me that she had come down with this awful bug that seems to be effecting people right across the country at the moment, so I went ahead alone. I have to say that this was not really a problem as I have become used to presenting to groups of 15 over the last few months, in fact it can often seem easier than teaching a smaller group because of the amount of feedback you receive.

The venue was a really well equipped training centre. The staff were all really friendly and helpful and the group were a pleasure to work with.
At the end of the course I had a very wet journey North to meet the rest of the family up in Penrith at Center Parcs for a few days break.

I returned today to find two very firm offers for a series of courses in the New Year.

If you would like to know more about Mental Health First Aid and MHFA courses then please visit my website at www.mentalhealthfirstaidnortheast.co.uk

I jumped on the 6.30 am train to London and found a seat, passing the time by finishing off a book I had been reading whilst in Grimsby. When the train passed Stevenage I decided to hav a look at the infomation that I had received about the conference to plan my tube journey. At this point the lady sitting next to me noticed the map I was holding and said that that was where she was going. She turned out to be a fellow Mental Health First Aid instructor who works as a freelance trainer for Middlesbrough MIND and was travelling down with two of their full time instructors.

This was very handy as we decided to share a taxi to the Conference venue, the Queen Elizabeth II Centre, opposite Westminster Abbey. It was great to see the MHFA England flag, literally, flying within view of Parliament.

The day seemed to go very fast. I met several of the instructors I trained with as well as the Community Links crowd from Leeds. I had a chance to talk to Dave Belshaw, the programme lead, for a few moments, and best of all met Marian, one of the stars of he DVD we use on the course.

We had speakers including Jonathan Naess, of Stands2 Reason and Dame Carol Black and in the afternoon the instructors were invited to workshops designed to help the course evolve and improve.

It was a long day but more than worth the journey and I returned with a goody bag stuffed with MHFA pads, pens and even stress balls. It really feels like we are now properly on the map.

If you would like to know more about Mental Health First Aid and MHFA courses then please visit my website at www.mentalhealthfirstaidnortheast.co.uk

The early part of this week was spent in Sheffield in a presenting an MHFA course in a church hall. Most of the trainees were health education workers for Help the Aged and there were two ladies who worked as tutors in lifelong learning in the community. All were on the course because they had already recognised that they regularly met clients and students who were experiencing mental health problems and wanted to be better equipped with the knowledge of how to help these people, signpost them to appropriate professional help and also be able to advise them on how to make changes in their lifestyles that will lead them to be able to also help themselves. This was ideal as this is exactly the ground that Mental Health first aid covers.

The weather was cold and it took time to master the church's heating system but we all learned from each other and had some fun. That's the thing about a Mental Health First Aid course. Although we deal with some serious material; talking about depression, suicide, anxiety disorders, psychosis and more, it is more than possible for the 12 hour course to be a lot of fun. One in four people in the UK experience symptoms of a diagnosable mental health problem in any one year so we are talking about common expierence. Even if trainees have not experienced these things themselves they almost certainly know people who have. The stigma that surrounds the very phrase "mental health" often leads people to shy away from talking about the subject and the freedom to discuss this honestly can be very liberating.

On Friday I was in Liverpool in a meeting with regard to possibly presenting a series of courses there in the New Year. I'll post here if firm dates are booked. It was a bit of a blast from the past as I was born in Liverpool but have not been back for 25 years. A lot has changed and the centre of the city looks great, even in what felt like sub zero temperatures on a very windy Winter's day. Hopefully I'll have an opportunity to explore the city properly in 09.

If you would like to know more about Mental Health First Aid and MHFA courses the please visit my website at www.mentalhealthfirstaidnortheast.co.uk

Last week I presented 2 courses in Barnsley on behalf of Community Links. Most of the trainees were Healthcare Trainers working in their local conmmunities. They teach people about how to eat a healthy diet, about stopping smoking etc. They work for a charity but the whole thing is funded by the NHS. They are ideal people to study MHFA as their role will really help reduce the stigma that surrounds mental health and mental health issues.

The first course was attended by 12 trainees and went really well. It's great when there is a lot of feedback and people feel able to share from personal experiences and from stories they have about other people. It creates a lot of energy and people make a lot of connections around the subject matter of the course.

We expected 12 more trainees for the second course. However there had been communication problems about dates and in the end we went ahead with only 4. I have to say that when I first started presenting MHFA courses I would have been really daunted by the idea of spending 2 days with such a small group, but I found it a really rewarding couple of days as we were able to get to know each other a lot better. Two of the Healthcare Trainers were from the Travelling community and it was really interesting to hear their perspective on mental health.

I should be back in Barnsley in the early New Year.

If you would like to know more about Mental Health First Aid and MHFA courses the please visit my website at www.mentalhealthfirstaidnortheast.co.uk

I have just had confirmation that I will be working with Community Links, a charity offering MHFA training in North Yorkshire and Humberside to present some of their courses over the next few months. So far we have confirmed six dates between this November and March of next year.

I had hardly caught my breath back from travelling home from Somerset and it was back to Morpeth for another MHFA course. The journey to and from Northumberland County Hall could be unpredictable give what was happening on the A1 varying between a fifty five minute journey from Darlington to anything up to two and a quarter hours. There was torrential rain on one of the days I was there which no doubt caused worries of further flooding for many.

The group this time was made up mainly of Health Workers for the local NHS Trust and they also brought an interesting perspective to the course material as they were often involved in promoting healthy eating, exercise etc to their clients in order to alleviate physical problems. Although they all worked in the Health Service I think the course opened many of their eyes to the signs and symptoms of mental health problems that they might be seeing around them in their working environments every day, as well as the things they could advise and do to help those experiencing them.

It was a lively group, and we had a lot of fun.

If you would like to know more about Mental Health First Aid then please visit my website at www.mentalhealthfirstaidnortheast.co.uk

Last week I presented a Mental Health First Aid course at Northumberland County Hall in Morpeth. At the beginning of the week it seemed like it might be touch or go in terms of whether the course would be able to go ahead at all as Morpeth was hit by some horrendous flooding the previous weekend.

It turned out that County Hall is at the top of a hill and had managed to remain unscathed. However one trainee had some video of the floods on her phone and it really was spectacular. Another was now working on the second floor of a building in which the ground floor was covered in silt.

The course had the full 15 complement attending, all from local organisations as diverse as the Pensions Service and a large firm that dealt with the distribution and repair of mobile phones. There were a number of HR professional who wanted a better grounding in mental health, one of whom particularly wanted to be able to properly explain  mental health issues to line managers who could sometimes be very unsympathetic, as a result of ignorance.

On the second day we just managed to finish in time to avoid the traffic chaos caused by a visit from Prince Charles. Apparently he was going to have tea with the Fire Brigade, based just across the road from us.

I'll be back in Morpeth in early October and I'm looking forward to it.

If you would like to find more information on MHFA you can visit my website at www.mentalhealthfirstaidnortheast.co.uk

It's been a while since I've reported in but I have been busy being rained on in Ireland, Scotland and England. My holidays involved a Father Ted pilgrimage in the West of Ireland and  a trip to the Edinburgh Festival. While in the former, Limerick disappeared underwater and while in the latter, we had a month's rain in 24 hours. Such is life and the climate at the moment.

Last weekend I spent 3 days doing MHFA promotional work at the Mind, Body and Boogie Festival in Bollington, which is near Macclesfield in Cheshire. It's a music festival with an emphasis on mental health organised by a charity called Week4aday. The leading light is a wonderful guy called David Raines who is in charge of Cognitive Behavioural Therapy training at Chester University. There is a huge committment from all the volunteers who help run the festival and in addition to the mental health message there were over 50 quality bands to be enjoyed over 5 venues in the three days.

I held workshops for potential trainees and instructors, as well as manning an MHFA stand using a rollup banner borrowed from CSIP in York, and doing plenty of leafleting and networking. The result is that the charity will be running the first course in the North West in November (dates to be confirmed) and will be giving a great deal of help in organising instructor training in the region.

I will be happy to go back again next year and help out in any way I can.

At the top of this report  you can see a photo of Black Bart, one of the many great bands at the festival, that recently supported Bob Dylan. You can visit their site here

I'm off to Morpeth next week. I'll report on that soon.

If you would like to find more information on MHFA you can visit my website at www.mentalhealthfirstaidnortheast.co.uk