Assistant Principal, Sarah Ball with 8 Sixth Form Bolton Students who’ve recently achieved their MHFAider Qualification
13 Sixth Form Bolton students have recently qualified as Mental Health First Aiders (MHFAider®). Mental Health First Aid (MHFA) is a training course which teaches people how to identify, understand and help someone who may be experiencing a mental health issue.
This makes a total of over 40 students who have achieved the qualification so far with two more cohorts due to become qualified soon. Sarah Ball, our assistant principal, is a qualified MHFA Adult trainer so offers this course to all of our students and staff regularly each academic year. MHFA doesn’t teach our us to be a therapist, but it teaches us to listen, reassure and respond, even in a crisis – and even potentially stop a crisis from happening.
The students learnt to recognise warning signs of mental ill health and develop the skills and confidence to approach and support someone whilst keeping themselves safe.
Each of them learnt how to empower someone to access the support they might need for recovery or successful management of symptoms. This included self-help books or websites, accessing therapy services through their GP, their school or place of work, online self-referral, support groups, and much more.
What’s more, they also gained an understanding of how to support positive wellbeing and tackle stigma in the world around us.
By becoming an MHFAider® with MHFA England they all have access to continuous support – well beyond their initial certification – so we have a large team of confident, empowered and motivated students to carry out their MFHA roles.
Assistant Principal, Sarah Ball, is also really positive about the MHFA programme and the benefits that the students’ training will give both themselves and the wider community saying:
Once again this is a huge achievement, and all have committed themselves to the challenging content of the MHFA course. These MH First Aiders will now go on to reduce stigma around mental health, encourage support, reduce discrimination surrounding mental health and offer a positive outlook of recovery to all.
So, a huge congratulations to all of our MHFAider®s, they have achieved a fantastic qualification that will help and support both themselves, friends, family, peers and colleagues.
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