What is Mental Health First Aid

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What is Mental Health First Aid?

• North East Regional Network 19th March 2007

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Mental health first aid

• Mental Health First Aid is exactly what it
  suggests, a first aid approach to mental health.
• MHFA) has become an international activity Hong
  Kong, Finland, Singapore, Canada and Scotland
  have all introduced mental health first aid
  Wales and Ireland working on it, England next

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What is Mental Health First Aid?

• MHFA is the help given to someone experiencing
  a mental health problem before professional help
  is obtained.
• Aims
• to preserve life where a person may be a danger
  to themselves or others
• to provide help to prevent the mental health
  problems developing into a more serious state
• to promote the recovery of good mental health
• to provide comfort to a person experiencing a
  mental health problem

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Mental health first aid

• 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.

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The five basic steps

• The action plan for MHFA has five basic steps
• Assess risk of suicide or self-harm
• Listen non-judgementally
• Give reassurance and information
• Encourage the person to get appropriate
  professional help
• Encourage self-help strategies
• (Source Scotland's mental health manual, 2005)

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Delivery of training

• NIMHE and Lewes Wealden Mind plan to deliver
  MHFA in England with the support of Health
  Scotland and the Scottish Development Centre.
• The plan of delivering training will mainly
  consist of using its current infrastructure, via
  regional development centres, to deliver the
  instructor training and associated materials.

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Delivery of training

• Three trainers will be attached to the North
  East, Yorks, and Humberside region
• They will train Instructors who in turn will
  train first-aiders
• Estimated cost for training instructors between
  1,250 and 1,900 each.
• Anticipated first intake of instructors will be
  sometime during mid to late May 2007.

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• Trainers will be able to able to train up to 12
  instructors at any one time, and anticipate up to
  four cohorts of training during the coming year.
• Therefore (3 x 12 x 4) 144 instructors
• First aiders course delivered over a minimum of
  12 hours which can be fairly intense.

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Useful Links

• Scotland
• http//www.healthscotland.org.uk/smhfa/
• Australia
• http//www.mhfa.com.au/program_overview.htm
• NIMHE
• http//www.neyh.csip.org.uk/index.html