Mental Health First Aid

There are no formal entry requirements for this course.

Youth Mental Health First Aid (YMHFA) courses are for everyone who works with, lives with or supports young people aged 8-18. They will teach you the skills and confidence to spot the signs of mental health issues in a young person, offer first aid and guide them towards the support they need. In doing so, you can speed up a young person’s recovery and stop a mental health issue from getting worse.

This two day course trains you as a Youth Mental Health First Aider (YMHFA), giving you:

• An in-depth understanding of young people’s mental health and factors that affect wellbeing
• Practical skills to spot the triggers and signs of mental health issues
• Confidence to reassure and support a young person in distress
• Enhanced interpersonal skills such as non-judgemental listening
• Knowledge to help a young person recover their health by guiding them to further support – whether that’s through self-help sites, their place of learning, the NHS, or a mix – engaging with parents, carers and external agencies where appropriate
• Ability to support a young person with a long term mental health issue or disability to thrive
• Tools to look after your own mental wellbeing

• Two day face-to-face course delivered across four manageable sessions
• Each session is built around a Youth Mental Health First Aid action plan
• Learning takes place through a mix of presentations, group discussions and workshop activities
• We limit numbers to 16 people per course so that the instructor can keep people safe and supported while they learn

The course focuses on the issues faced by young people today, such as cyber bullying and substance misuse, and teaches how to promote protective factors and good parenting.  The course will increase awareness around young people’s mental health.  Allowing you to develop practical skills to identify a range of mental health issues and support a young person to get the help they need.  Completing the 2-day course qualifies you as a Youth Mental Health First Aider.

Our courses won’t teach you to be a therapist, but we will teach you to listen, reassure and respond, even in a crisis – and even potentially stop a crisis from happening.

But more than that, we aim to give you the information and skills to look after your own mental health so that you can set an example for young people. By giving you the tools to have these conversations, we hope to empower you to create a mentally healthy, supportive environment in your family, school, peer group or community.

Let’s create a future where mental health is treated as a normal part of life, in the same way as physical health. A future where every young person has access to support if they need it.