We can highly recommend the Mental Health First Aid Course. In fact, I believe it should be a course everyone undertakes. Eight of our @humansingeelong team members had the generous opportunity to complete this course recently.
Take aways included:
– Mental Health issues are very common. 1 in 4 people will experience some symptoms of a MH issue in a 12 month period and more than a third are not receiving any help for this.
– it is the third highest disease burden in Australia. Cancer and Cardiovascular diseases being No 1 and 2.
-keep an eye on friends you are worried about. Has their behaviour changed?
– if you are worried about someone, talk to them in a quiet place where you can give them your full attention, using eye contact and a calm reassuring voice. Assure them that Mental Health issues are common, especially in this environment, and that they can get help
– suggest they see their GP who can activate a free Mental Health Plan for them
– there are several free online Mental Health help programs, which encompass Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, that people could do while waiting to see their GP or specialist. 2 of the best are Mood Gym https://moodgym.com.au/ and Mind Spot https://mindspot.org.au/.
– Sometimes when feeling unsupported, people start to think there is no hope and may experience suicidal thoughts. you are worried the person may be thinking about suicide, suggest talking in a quiet place, talk calmly, ask them openly, remove them from the danger and keep them safe. Contact Help.
– Help lines include:
Lifeline lifeline.org.au 13 11 14
Beyond Blue beyondblue.org.au 1300 22 4636
Beyond Blue covid help service https://coronavirus.beyondblue.org.au/
Suicide Call Back Service suicidecallbackservice.org.au 1300 659 467
Headspace Geelong headspace.org.au (03) 5222 6690
-practise self-care by doing activities that bring you joy.
The Mental Health First Aid website is https://mhfa.com.au/ The first component of the course, is a self-guided online component which takes 7 hours, or longer if you want to be very thorough. Information is provided via videos, audios, readings and quizzes. For the second component, you are part of two, 3-hour groups Zoom sessions facilitated by a qualified instructor. Chris McGrath very kindly and generously, volunteered her time to enable our 8 team members to be trained.
Information: Jacqui Bennett. Photo: by Hadeel @hsStoriesPhotography of team members @kimelisecooper and @jacquibennett
HuG 