To mark Time to Talk Day The Huffington Post’s lifestyle editor, Brogan Driscoll, has been writing about her experience of becoming a Mental Health First Aider after taking the Adult MHFA Two Day course. She discusses her motivations for taking part, and also talks to Mental Health First Aid instructors Natasha Devon MBE and Stuart Skinner about their work.
Stuart is an expedition leader and consultant to organisations in the outdoor adventure industry, delivering MHFA courses to support other expedition leaders. He discusses the impact of mental health stigma, highlights the importance of self-care when supporting others, and describes a situation he has used his MHFA skills whilst on an expedition.
Natasha works as a Youth MHFA instructor delivering training as part of her work touring schools, colleges and universities all over the country. She talks to Brogan about the importance of MHFA courses in breaking down and demystifying what is often perceived as a complicated subject area.
To see how Natasha, Stuart and other Mental Health First Aiders and MHFA instructors use their skills, you can hear their stories here.
MHFA England director and youth lead, Caroline Hounsell, has also taken the opportunity to catch up with MHFA instructors and Mental Health First Aiders from 10 different backgrounds to find out how they’re using MHFA to get people talking about mental health. You can read her blog on this here.
To find out more about Time to Talk Day, visit our campaign page. You can see how we’ve been getting talking about mental health in the MHFA England central team here.
For more information on Time to Talk Day visit the official website: time-to-change.org.uk/get-involved/time-talk-day-2018