Mental Health Awareness Training, Page 5 Reviews

The training was good. However, the images used to represent mental ill are somewhat stigmatic. The cartoon character with two heads is extremely stigmatic for people with bipolar disorder for example…very bad for an organisation that intends to reduce stigma…

Personifying mental illnesses as different "monsters" you drag around was insensitive and not a nice representation. Some people are born with these mental illnesses or inherit them from relatives and cannot treat them away. Perceiving them as monsters gave the impression that all people who suffer with MH issues to be a really bad thing and fed the stigma not helped see it as a less taboo subject.

No summary provided

should just be a refresher course

it was ok, the level was really low and the pace a bit slow. it covered basics for all i suppose.

Also sum of £33-40 billion p.a. quoted as cost to UK business but no source was quoted. Please quote your sources.

It may be just me but most of this seemed self evident, too much fluff and too little content.

With eating disorders being one of the leading causes of death in people with mental health conditions I don’t think it is appropriate to contain a slide listing foods that people should avoid as this can be triggering. It’s also not particularly relevant, eating ketchup hasn’t medically been linked to mental health issues, and latest papers on nutrition and mental health show eating ‘unhealthy food’ in moderation is better than completely avoiding. Lastly on that slide coeliac is not an allergy it’s a disease and it’s spelt wrong.

I think this course needs reframing. It shouldn't address those that are experiencing mental health issues at the point of learning. More appropriate resource on how to support. The content suggests on multiple occasions that you have should control/self awareness and even implies that there is a duty to act. At the point of going through crisis it can be very unlikely, no matter how intelligent/ normally self aware, to even recognise the signs for what they are because you do not have full capacity, The flippant suggestion that you should just replace a positive with a negative thought and the quote from Jenny Finch 100% needs adjusting.

The course gives very basic information about mental health topics, with the empahsis on looking after your own mental health. Although the points raised in the training are important, I personally believe that this course is not comprehensive enough to be classed as 'mental health awareness'. For me the training should be called something like 'An introduction to mental health'. Mental health awareness should be teaching us about the range of illnesses, triggers, symptoms, and most importantly - how can the learner support someone with a mental health disorder, not just depression and anxiety, but other disorders like bipolar or an eating disorder. In educating people about the different diagnoses, it can help break down stigma and discrimination that comes from the lack of awareness of the less common psychiatric illnesses. By educating work forces in what I would class as 'mental health awareness' it can help create an accepting environment for those with common and more complex illnesses. It can also help employees pick up on early warning sigs of serious illnesses, like psychosis or mania. The last point I want to raise is, in your information about self harm, you say that some young people 'grow out of self harm', this implies that self harm is a childish behaviour and can be interpreted as patronising . I work as a mental health recovery practitioner, I support clients who self harm and I self harmed as teenager; I know that all of us would collectively say it isn't the right term to use and you are giving out the wrong information.