Mental Health Awareness Training in Secondary Schools

The mental health awareness training should equip members of staff with the skills and information to spot early signs of mental health conditions, so that they are able to have an open discussion with children and young people and point them to relevant the mental health support they need. The purpose of this mental health awareness training is to reduce stigma by shifting negative attitudes about mental health to enable early detection of mental health conditions.

Previous years of the programme have delivered training to a member of staff in 2,000 secondary schools in England. In the first two years of the programme 2000 members of staff in 2000 schools will have bee participated in a youth mental health awareness one day course delivered by Mental Health First Aid. The key output for the third is to deliver appropriate mental health awareness training to one member of staff in the remaining 1000 secondary schools between April 2019 and March 2020.

Appropriate mental health awareness training should teach participants to: · Spot the early signs of a mental health problem · Feel confident helping someone experiencing a problem · Provide help on a first aid basis · Help prevent someone from hurting themselves or others · Help stop a mental illness from getting worse · Help someone to recover faster · Guide someone towards the right support · Reduce the stigma of mental health issues · Improve resilience and about preventative mental health · Build a mentally healthy school/workplace/community