Mental Health Blog

Choosing who goes on a mental health first aid course can feel oddly tricky. Send the wrong person and it becomes a tick-box. Send the right mix and it quietly changes how your workplace feels. Here's what I've seen work, and how awesome is it when a team gets this right? Start with volunteers People who put their hand up tend to bring curiosity, and curiosity makes for a far better first aider than obligation does. Be aware that they may already be taking a lot of the strain and also need support. If nobody volunteers, a gentle conversation about what the role involves and the benefits can help. Look for the person colleagues already talk to Every workplace has one. They're the person who gets pulled aside by the kettle or messaged after a tough meeting. Training them gives their natural instinct some structure and confidence. Aim for a mix Different teams, so support doesn't sit in one corner of the business Different levels, so people can approach someone who isn't their line manager Different working patterns, including shifts, part-timers and remote staff Different personalities, because quiet listeners are every bit as valuable as the chatty ones Different ages, backgrounds, religions etc. so there's a variety of different relatable individuals to speak to. Include neurodivergent colleagues Many bring real strengths here, such as noticing small changes in a person, listening without rushing to fill the silence, and being comfortable with honest conversation. Everyone's different, so ask rather than assume. Think about numbers One first aider on a big team can end up carrying a lot. Having several means someone is usually around, and nobody feels like the only one. MHFA England recommends 1 First Aider for every 10 employees. It means that you can build a First Aiding team that can promote ideas and events, who can support each other and share non-confidential information. What to avoid Choosing someone because they're "good with feelings" Sending only HR, who may already be seen as the formal route Picking someone who's already stretched to breaking point Choosing someone who is currently in poor mental health. Those with lived experience are valuable but this is not the right time for them to be training. Ready to choose your group? Get in touch and I'll help you work out the right mix for your team.

Booking a course for your team can feel like a leap when you can't picture the experience. So this is for you. The room (on Zoom, usually!) A group of between 8-12 so everyone gets heard Me on screen right there with you. Access to the chat which means that you can direct message me at any time if you have any concerns and no one needs to know. Your camera is important and I will ask you to keep in on so I can keep everyone safe. However due to the smaller sized groups this is not as intrusive as this sounds and we forget it's there pretty quickly. You can turn up in a suit or in relaxed clothing, I don't mind. Eat, pace, doodle. All fine by me so long as I have your attention and curiosity. The learning Over the four hour sessions: We will use short bursts of teaching, group activities and real-life examples, so nobody sits through a wall of slides You can opt out if you are uncomfortable at any time You don't need to prepare in advance. I will take you through everything and I love questions so feel free to ask away. Common worries, answered "Will I have to share my own story?" No. You share only what you choose to. "Will it be heavy?" Some moments are serious, and we balance them with plenty of laughter and breaks. "What if I'm not a 'people person'?" Quiet listeners often make brilliant first aiders and you might be the ideal support for someone who is similar. What you take away You leave with a manual, a certificate, access to the MHFA England First Aider community and the benefits that your certificate don't show, are the ones people mention most: more confidence, less stigma, and a hand in shaping the place you live and work. Most people tell me they wish they'd done it sooner. Ready to experience it for yourself? Get in touch and I'll talk you through what course is best for you.

October is ADHD Awareness Month, so it's a lovely moment to get curious. Why it matters Around 2.6 million people in the UK are thought to live with ADHD, and many are undiagnosed. That means you almost certainly work alongside someone with ADHD, or live with someone who has it. Awareness helps people feel understood sooner. Things worth knowing ADHD looks different from person to person. No two people have the same experience. It isn't only about fidgeting or being distracted. It can also mean intense focus, big ideas and a brilliant sense of fun. Many adults reach adulthood without a diagnosis, so they may have spent years wondering why things felt harder than they looked. Small adjustments often make a huge difference. Clear written instructions, flexible deadlines and a quiet place to think cost very little. Strengths deserve as much attention as struggles. Good teams find what each person does well and build around it. Ways to get involved Wear orange . Orange is the colour linked with ADHD awareness, and wearing it can start conversations. Share what you learn with #adhdawarenessmonth. Look at the ADHD Foundation's Umbrella Project , a UK campaign working to make neurodiversity mainstream. Use the free resources on the official ADHD Awareness Month website. It offers toolkits and printable materials designed for workplaces. Ask a colleague, "What helps you do your best work?" and then really listen to the answer. Book some neurodiversity training for your team, so everyone learns together. A final thought Everyone is doing the best they can with what they're carrying, and we rarely see the full picture. A bit of curiosity goes a long way. How awesome would it be if every workplace in Salisbury felt like somewhere people could be themselves? I'll be sorting out my orange top this month, will you be joining me?

If you're thinking about training for your team, you've probably noticed there are plenty of free mental health courses online. Some are perfectly decent as an introduction. So why would a local business pay for a live course, and how do you pick the right person to run it? Let's walk through it, because the choice makes a bigger difference than most people expect. What you're actually paying for A free online course gives you information. A live course with a real instructor gives you a room full of people who can ask the awkward "but what would I actually say?" questions and get an answer there and then. That matters, because mental health conversations rarely follow a script. Being able to test your worries out loud, hear how colleagues would handle something and have an experienced person guide you is where the confidence comes from. How awesome is that, compared with clicking "next" on a slide? Questions worth asking before you book Are you a certified MHFA England instructor? Ask to see it. Proper certification is the foundation. How big are your groups? Smaller rooms mean more questions, more airtime and more support. I cap mine at 12. What do your reviews say? Look for comments about how safe people felt, which tells you far more than a list of qualifications. Can people ask questions throughout? You want a course where curiosity is welcome, not squeezed in at the end. What happens if someone finds a topic difficult? A good instructor has a calm, kind plan for this and will happily tell you what it is. Do you work with businesses like mine? Experience with big corporates and with small local teams are different things. Online or in person? Both work well, and the right choice depends on your team. If you're based locally, I'm happy to visit your workplace or deliver face to face, which many teams find easier to settle into. If you'd rather keep it flexible, live online courses with a real person in the room (on screen) are every bit as interactive. The bit people forget Training is the start. Your first aiders will feel more confident if they've had the chance to practise, ask and be heard. That support is the investment, and it's the thing a free course can't give you. If you're in Salisbury or the surrounding area and want to talk it through, I'd love to hear from you. I'll even put the kettle on (and there may be cake). My husband still think I just chat to people for a living, which, to be fair, isn't far off!

A few years ago I stood at the top of a waterfall in a wetsuit. The guide told me calmly the way down was to jump. Not climb, not abseil, jump. My brain gave me every reason this was a bad idea in about four seconds. I jumped anyway. It was fine. Ninety seconds later I did it again, because it turned out to be the best part of the day. I've done a fair bit of this over the years: Parachute jumping Scuba diving Whitewater rafting Canyoning I'm not naturally fearless. I do it because I've become fairly convinced that doing things that make you uncomfortable is one of the more reliable ways to learn something true about yourself. Why this matters beyond a wetsuit The discomfort right before you jump is almost never really about the water. It's about the moment just before, where your brain tries to talk you out of something your body can actually handle. That gap, between "I can't do this" and "I just did that", is where the useful information lives. The same gap shows up at wor k Just with less water involved: The conversation you've avoided with a colleague, worried about getting it wrong The question you didn't ask, because you assumed everyone else knew the answer The moment you noticed someone wasn't themselves, and said nothing None of these feel life threatening the way a waterfall does for four seconds. But they run on the same mechanism, a brain protecting you from a risk that's usually smaller than it feels. What I try to bring into a course Permission to sit in that uncomfortable gap rather than rush past it. Practising an awkward conversation out loud, in a room of people you don't know well, is its own small canyon jump. I've watched people do it and come out the other side looking genuinely surprised at themselves.  A personal note My own kids get the same lecture fairly often, usually about something far less dramatic: trying a new food, going to a party where they don't know many people, putting their hand up in class. I'm not sure they always believe me when I say the fear is nearly always bigger than the thing itself. I'll keep saying it anyway, partly because I believe it, and partly because I need the reminder just as much as they do.

People often ask why I don't run bigger courses. I could book 16 people on a First Aid course and up to 25 on either the Refresher or Aware Course. Instead I cap at 12 and 14 respectively. Why? More people per session, lower cost per head, quicker growth. It makes business sense. But this is not about business, it's about people. Caring starts with offering that care on the course and smaller and better beats bigger and thinner every time. Here's what I think Honesty needs a small room This training only works if people are actually honest in the (Zoom) room. That doesn't happen easily when someone's one face among twenty. The useful moments are small ones: Admitting they've avoided a conversation with a colleague Asking a question they'd feel silly asking in a bigger group Talking through how they'd handle a specific person on their own team None of that happens easily at scale. Small groups let me actually tailor the day Whether it's a mixed room of people sent by different employers, or a private course for one organisation, I can shape what we cover around the people actually in front of me. A bigger room forces the lowest common denominator instead. The personal reason I run this from home. I'm a mother fitting work into a limited number of hours a day. Keeping numbers manageable protects the time and energy I need to do this well for years, not just for one busy quarter. What to ask yourself If you're choosing between a course that squeezes in as many people as possible, and one that's deliberately kept tighter, ask what you actually want from the day: Just a certificate and a box ticked? Size probably won't matter much. People who leave able to have a genuinely difficult conversation? The room needs to be small enough that they've actually practised it out loud. That's the bet I've made. Years in, I still think it's the right one.

.. .Even When Budgets Are Tight. When money's tight, training budgets are often one of the first things to be trimmed. It feels like a cost you can pause without anything visibly breaking the following week. Mental health first aid training tends to get filed under "nice to have" in years like this. I'd like to make the case that it belongs somewhere else, and that pausing it is usually the more expensive choice, just one whose cost doesn't show up on the same line as the training fee. What poor mental health is already costing you This cost exists whether or not you've trained anyone to deal with it: Sickness absence linked to stress, anxiety and low mood is one of the largest, most preventable categories of lost working time It rarely arrives as one dramatic event, it builds gradually through presenteeism and dipping performance It eventually shows up as someone off sick, or someone leaving None of that gets cheaper by leaving it untrained for. It just becomes less visible until the bill arrives in a different form. The turnover maths Replacing an employee, particularly a good one, typically costs somewhere between half and double their annual salary once you count: Recruitment Onboarding Lost productivity while someone new gets up to speed The knowledge that leaves with them One trained first aider, having one well timed conversation that keeps a valuable employee in their role, can cover the cost of an entire course several times over. That's not a hopeful estimate, it's the kind of return finance teams take seriously once it's framed the way they frame every other investment decision. If budget really is the sticking point A few things worth checking before assuming the answer is no: Existing wellbeing, health and safety, or L&D budgets that weren't fully spent Sector-specific grants or funding earmarked for this kind of training Whether finance or HR have flexibility you haven't asked about yet The bottom line This training isn't a cost you can pause without consequence. It's closer to insurance you're already paying for through absence, turnover, and unmanaged stress, except right now nobody's trained to actually use it. A tight year is exactly when that gap costs you the most, not the least. A personal note I run a fairly small operation from home, deliberately, so I know what it means to weigh up every pound before it's spent. When a client books with me, I want them to know it was worth it. Not because I told them so, but because six months later they can point to a conversation that happened, or a resignation that didn't.

Free online mental health courses are everywhere now, and more people are choosing them over a course with a live instructor. I understand the appeal, no booking a date, no cost, done in your own time. But I think this shortcut is costing people more than they realise, and I want to explain exactly why. What a self-paced course with no instructor can't do It can't answer a question when something doesn't quite make sense It can't be interrogated. You can't push back on a point, ask "but what if..." or explore something that's bothering you It can't notice when someone in front of a screen is starting to feel overwhelmed It can't adjust its pace or tone for the person actually taking it It can't create great discussions It can't facilitate you to connect with a group of individuals going through the same learning A good instructor does all of this, in real time, without the learner even needing to ask. Why the questions matter so much Mental health first aid content can bring up difficult things. Someone in the room might be thinking of a colleague, a friend, or even themselves. With a live instructor, there's a person there to: Take that question seriously, in a friendly, open way Help someone work through what's actually bothering them Spot the signs when a topic is landing too close to home, and respond to that person directly None of that happens on a video that just keeps playing regardless of how someone watching is doing. What's lost without a group A free online course is usually a solo experience. That means losing: The chance to hear how other people would actually handle a difficult conversation Practising an awkward conversation out loud, not just reading about one The reassurance of realising other people in the room have the exact same worries Learning from other people's questions, not just your own A huge amount of what makes this training actually useful happens in that shared space, not in the content itself. Why this matters beyond just "a worse experience" This isn't only about which course is more enjoyable. It's about what kind of first aider comes out the other end. Someone trained without an instructor may finish the course, but they haven't had: The chance to build real confidence through practice The opportunity to check their understanding The chance to ask questions or relate concerns Guidance on setting their own boundaries Someone checking they know how to look after themselves once they start supporting others A first aider who doesn't know their own limits, or how to protect their own wellbeing while supporting someone else's, isn't fully equipped for the role, however good the written content was. The bottom line This isn't about promoting one provider over another. It doesn't need to be me delivering it. What matters is that there's a real instructor in the room, someone there to make sure everyone actually gets through the course having learned what they need, and comes out the other side as the right kind of first aider: capable, supported, and clear on their own boundaries.  That's not a nice extra. It's the part that makes the training actually work.

Nobody hands in their notice because of one bad Tuesday. It's usually months, sometimes years, of feeling unsupported, unseen, or like nobody would notice if they were struggling. And here's the bit that should make every business owner sit up: replacing someone properly costs a fortune. Recruitment fees, the productivity gap while the role sits empty, months of a new person finding their feet... it adds up fast, and most of it is entirely avoidable. What keeps good people isn't just decent pay or a nice office. It's psychological safety, that sense that if things get hard, there's somewhere to turn and someone who'll actually listen without judgement. Mental Health First Aid builds exactly that. When people know there are trained First Aiders around them, colleagues who can spot the signs early and point them towards proper support, something shifts in how safe the whole workplace feels. People stay in places where they feel human, not just productive. The organisations getting this right aren't doing anything flashy. They're just making sure support isn't a poster in the break room, it's real people with real training who know what to do when someone's struggling. That's the difference between a culture people tolerate and one they actually want to stay in. How awesome is it that something as practical as a two day course can genuinely change whether your best people stick around? I think about this every time someone tells me they are changing jobs again, it's rarely about the money. It's about whether they felt like they mattered where they were.