Mental Health First Aid (Youth)
This course qualifies you as a Youth Mental Health First Aider, 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
Format (as taken from Mental Health First Aid England)
- This course can be delivered online through the MHFA England Online Learning Hub or in-person
- When delivered online, learning takes place through four live training sessions, spread across two weeks, with self-learning activities in between. See course structure section below for more detail
- When delivered in-person, learning takes place through two full-day sessions
- Each session is built around a Mental Health First Aid action plan
- We limit numbers to 16 people per course so that the instructor can keep people safe and supported while they learn
Delegates will receive:
- A certificate of attendance to say you are a Youth Mental Health First Aider
- A Youth MHFA manual to refer to whenever you need it
- A workbook including some helpful tools to support your own mental health
How do I book?
Contact our training team by emailing training@rethink.org or by calling 0333 222 5878.
Course outline
Session 1: Introduction
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Individual Learning (1 hour 15 mins) |
Live Session (2 hours 30 mins) |
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Introduction to the Online Youth Mental Health First Aid course and the Online Learning Hub |
Introduction to the course |
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Activity 1: Why Youth Mental Health First Aid? |
Outline of live session 1, the value of Youth Mental Health First Aid |
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Activity 2: What is ALGEE? |
Introduce ALGEE |
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Activity 3: What is mental health? |
Recap what mental health is |
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Activity 4: Mental health and stigma |
Recap the Mental Health Continuum |
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Activity 5: Mental health quiz: Impact of mental health |
Stigma |
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Activity 6: Risk and protective factors for mental health |
Recap why Youth Mental Health First Aid is important |
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Activity 7: The Stress Container |
Recap risk and protective factors |
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The Stress Container |
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The Frame of Reference |
Session 2: Depression, Anxiety and Self-care
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Individual Learning (1 hour 45 mins) |
Live Session (2 hours 10 mins) |
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Activity 8: Your Stress Container |
Introduction to live session 2 |
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Activity 9: Your Frame of Reference |
Recap of homework after live session 1 |
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Activity 10: What is depression? |
Recap depression |
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Activity 11: What is anxiety? |
Signs and symptoms of depression in a young person |
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Recap anxiety |
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Signs and symptoms of anxiety in a young person |
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ALGEE for depression and anxiety in a young person |
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ALGEE for depression and anxiety, action 1 |
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ALGEE for depression and anxiety, action 2-5 |
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Self-care and close |
Session 3: Suicide and Psychosis
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Individual Learning (1 hour 20 mins) |
Live Session (2 hours 5 mins) |
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Activity 12: Adolescent brain development |
Introduction to live session 3 |
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Activity 13: About suicide |
Recap suicide |
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Activity 14: Suicide risk factors |
Explore the impact of suicidal feelings |
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Activity 15: What is psychosis? |
ALGEE for suicidal crisis |
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Activity 16: Lived experience of psychosis |
Practice non-judgemental listening skills |
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Activity 17: ALGEE for psychosis |
Recap psychosis |
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Recap warning signs and symptoms of psychosis |
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Recap ALGEE for psychosis |
Session 4: Self-harm, Eating disorders, Recovery and Action planning
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Individual Learning (1 hour 35 mins) |
Live Session (2 hours 25 mins) |
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Activity 18: What is self-harm? |
Introduction to live session 4 |
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Activity 19: What are eating disorders? |
Recap self-harm, the self-harm continuum |
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Activity 20: Resilience |
Warning signs of self-harm in young people |
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Workbook activity 7: My action plan for using Youth Mental Health First Aid (completed after live session) |
ALGEE for self-harm |
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Recap eating disorders |
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ALGEE for eating disorders |
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Applying MHFA to family and carers; the Recovery Tree |
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Evaluation forms and close |