Mental Health

Mental health problems are an increasing public health concern, not just in the UK but they are prevalent around the world. But despite this, many people there is less awareness than there should be about mental health and mental illness and there needs to be an improved understanding of how people can manage or recover from mental ill health and how suicide risk can be reduced. This Mental Health Awareness course aims to increase awareness and understanding, particularly amongst professionals who may regularly come into contact with people with mental ill health. The course also aims to raise awareness of how the equality act applied to mental health and about the importance of self care for mental wellbeing.

The course is a one-day programme which aims to equip social care professionals to have a greater understanding of mental health problems affecting children and young people, and how these impact on their emotional wellbeing and behaviour. Through understanding the context of young people’s lives and mental health difficulties we will consider ways practitioners can work towards providing better support, recognising the personal, familial, and societal risk factors and how they impact on children impacting on children’s behaviour. Participants will be introduced to the core concepts of Dan Hughes’s PACE (playfulness, acceptance, curiosity and empathy) model of intervention, and how this can be used to enhance communication and support to children and young people experiencing mental distress. The course will provide reflective space for participants to consider the needs and risks of a young person they are working with, and there will be a sharing of local and national resources relevant to the client group including discussion of Camhs referrals and current resource issues.

The two-day certificated programme for candidates to become Mental Health First Aiders, certified by MHFA England aims to allow participants to gain an awareness of Mental Health disorders, the different types of mental disorder, the causes of mental disorder, and the symptoms to look out for and actions to take. The course will identify the statistics of mental health disorders, it will cover suicide and self-harm and how to support someone with suicidal ideas or carrying out self-harm. It will enable participants to have the skills and confidence around mental health disorders, how to support someone who may have a mental health disorder in seeking the appropriate help and will endeavour to put mental health on the same footing as physical health in the workplace.

To provide participants with an opportunity to develop their understanding of how appropriate assessment of risk can be used to consider the impact of parental substance use on children and to plan appropriate child focused responses. Underpinning knowledge The course will be underpinned by appropriate research, theory and knowledge drawn from service user reports, serious case reviews, inspections and government inquiries.

This course will focus on the impact of the Trilogy of Risk (also known as the Toxic Trio), of domestic abuse, parental substance misuse, and parental mental health on children and multi-agency responses to working with families where this is a feature. In an analysis of 139 serious case reviews, between 2009-2011 (Brandon et al 2012), investigations showed that in over three quarters incidents (86%) where children were seriously harmed or died one or more of a “toxic trio” mental illness, substance misuse and domestic abuse played a significant part.

This course is designed to assist practitioners in their assessments of children’s needs where one or more parent or carer has a mental illness. The training recognises the intricate interplay between parental ill health, parenting tasks and the developmental needs of children.

Taking a neurobiological view – how do we work with Trauma within our perspective roles?

This one day course helps staff to understand the affects of mental health on the behaviour in adolescents