Anya Edwards on learnings from Mental Health First Aid course
by Anya on May 15
4 min read
Anya attended the MHFA England, Adult, Mental Health First Aid (MHFAider®) course, delivered by Kate Moxley, who is an Instructor Member and founder of Wellness for All. Here, Anya reflects on some key things she learned from the course.
Being an educator is all-encompassing in some incredible and positive ways, but it can also be really challenging. The Teacher Wellbeing Index reported that 78% of all education staff are feeling stressed, whilst 36% are experiencing burn-out. As educators our focus is on supporting children, but that often means that there isn’t time or space for us to think about supporting each other. We may not be sure how to help and show up for our colleagues.
In February, I took part in the MHFA England, Adult, Mental Health First Aid (MHFAider®) course, delivered by Kate Moxley, Instructor Member and founder of the Wellness For All Training Company. Not only did the course teach me new skills and build my understanding around supporting mental health, it made me reflect deeply on my personal experience of working in education. I looked back on my role as support staff for children with social, emotional and mental health needs and considered how I might have been better supported so that I could have been even more emotionally available for the children I worked with.
Here are four important things I learned from completing my MHFAider® certification on Kate’s course:
1) Your ‘Frame of Reference’ shapes how you interact with and respond to the world around you
At the beginning of our MHFA journey, Kate encouraged us to reflect on our own ‘Frame of Reference’. This is all the things that might influence how you view, interact with and respond to the world around you – your gender identity, sexuality, your race, education, culture, the list can go on. Acknowledging your frame of reference is a key starting point in understanding how you can support other people’s mental health. In our roles as educators we interact with lots of different people each day: our classrooms are filled with children, all of whom have their own frames of reference, as do their parents/carers and our colleagues. How we navigate these spaces and relationships depends on our personal frame of reference. This might usually feel fine for you, but how do you feel when someone else’s frame of reference is different to yours? Do you take the time to listen and learn, to discuss and share with each other? By understanding both your own frame of reference and other people’s you can work towards building a space of trust, acceptance, learning and empathy.
2) By building your knowledge and understanding of mental health you can reduce stigma and challenge your own assumptions
The stigma around mental health was something we covered a lot in the course. It’s important that we reflect on our assumptions about mental health conditions. For example, what words come to mind when you think of a person with a mental health condition? Why? How might those assumptions impact the support you give to this person? Mental health looks different for everyone and it is important that we take the time to get to know each individual and what their condition looks and feels like for them. Take a moment to watch this video about the stigma surrounding mental health. Please be mindful this video talks about depression. After watching the video, you may wish to reflect on how your assumptions might change moving forward.
3) Try not to go immediately to a solution or try to ‘fix’
How we support others when they come to us to talk about their mental health, or when you find them in a state of distress, is vital. What do you do? What are the things you might need to consider. The MHFAider® course has a clear MHFA England Action Plan on how you can support others when experiencing poor mental health and on how you can support others in a potential crisis situation. This guide, combined with the knowledge you gain from the course on mental health conditions, helped me to feel more secure in supporting others in distress. Often, we want to dive straight in and “fix” or try to make things better for someone, but that might not be what they actually need. There is a fantastic talk from Brene Brown that can help us understand the difference between empathy and sympathy.
Taking the time to listen to others, to provide a space where they don’t feel judged, and where they do feel safe, heard and empathised with is so much more impactful. You can then work together to find out what might be the best kind of support for them.
4) Make sure you practice self-care
Children need us to be emotionally available adults. In order to be truly present for them, we need to make sure we are ok. Having the right boundaries in place is key for self-care, making sure that you don’t take on too much work or you’re not staying too late to try and get things done. Outside of your workload, you need to be mindful of your own time and capacity to help your colleagues, or parents/carers, who may need personal help and support. Practicing self-care is about putting the right things in place for yourself in order to prevent feelings like stress, overwhelm and burn-out. This can be really hard, as we’re conditioned to think that looking after others must come first. But to have the energy and presence to look after others, we need to look after ourselves.
MHFA England also has a dedicated self-care resources page which you might like to take a look at.
I learned so much from the MHFA course. Kate approached the sensitive subject areas we covered, such as suicide and self-harm, with honesty, respect and thoughtfulness. This helped me feel more confident to support someone who is experiencing mental health difficulties. Kate encouraged us to challenge the stigma and discrimination around mental health and to show up for others. In our showing up, we can make real change.
You can find out more about Kate Moxley’s work on her website: The Wellness For All Training Company.
You can also find more trusted sources of information to support yourself and others below: