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Paul Thompson, Volunteer and Training Lead at Springfield Mind, shares his story of becoming a Mental Health First Aid instructor and empowering his community to support people experiencing mental ill health.
My journey into mental health was a surprise both to me and to my family. The short story, is that lived experience brought me to Springfield Mind, one of 132 local Mind charities working up and down the country to provide better mental health support in our community.
As part of my role as a volunteer, I would regularly answer initial telephone calls as a first point of contact for people need support with their mental ill health. At this point the Chief Executive, Maria Fennell, asked if I would like to attend the Adult Mental Health First Aid (MHFA) Course run by MHFA England. Maria felt that this course would improve my skills when dealing with the vulnerable people, who day in, day out seek our support at Springfield Mind.
Attending the course gave me an excellent skill set, not just in the context of helping others in my work, but also in my personal relationships and most importantly keeping an eye on my own wellbeing.
The course has a lot of ground to cover, but the trainer balanced excellent lived experience films, with group activities, opportunities for self-reflection and vibrant discussions, bringing the training and skills we were learning to life.
I also left the course feeling I had received the latest gold standard training in MHFA. The course gave me the confidence to face first aid situations in the context of my work, as well as the skills to provide the best support possible before signposting people to professional help.
I would say another key strength of MHFA is the holistic person-centred approach, taking account of both the medical and social approaches to mental health. In my work at Springfield Mind I have come to understand that balancing social and medical approaches can have a massive impact for the individual.
As part of this course we received the comprehensive MHFA manual. I cannot recall a week in the past year when I have not turned to it for a quick recap or indeed guidance. The manual combines statistics, signposting and an overview of mental health and conditions that we encounter, often on a daily basis.
After a group of us from Springfield Mind went on the training, I think it became evident to Maria, our CEO, that we had improved the quality of support we were able to offer. It was then decided that all volunteers and staff members must be MHFA-qualified and our charity has since sponsored me to train as an MHFA instructor to enabled me to train others in MHFA. We have been successful in marketing the benefits of this course to our local community and now offer this as a service to public bodies and local companies.