Mental Health First Aid North East - Hull

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