Suicide First Aid Launch, By Jane McNeice
Mind Matters was delighted to attend the Launch of Suicide First Aid at The Oval in London today (26th September). The new course has been produced by the National Centre for Suicide Prevention Training UK and provides delegates with the skills, knowledge, and confidence to prevent suicide. This course is slightly different to the ASIST (Applied Suicide Intervention Skills) Training that Mind Matters currently offers. SFA is a one day course, but also comes with accreditation at Level 4 from City & Guilds, following completion of an...
read moreEffective Therapy, By Hugh Macnab
Effective therapy I probably seems obvious, but therapists only see people who will go to see them. That means that they are working with people who are already suffering from some form of distress – in other words, helpful as they may be at fixing the problem, they become involved only when itʼs already too late. Perhaps more people would seek help if therapy could be available when it was really needed – when the conditions which are causing the distress are active and the individual is struggling to cope – not later,...
read moreSocial Media & Mental Health, By Jane McNeice
“Social media! Social media is the cause of their mental health problems.” A phrase I hear so frequently when I deliver mental health training, particularly when I deliver Youth MHFA courses. Few delegates tend to challenge the statement, most in agreement. This generates lots of thought for me. Firstly, is social media really the cause of mental ill health? And secondly, if it has any influence whatsoever, what is it about social media that is so bad? The world is changing, fast. One of the most significant changes in the last few decades...
read moreHow to Improve Your Mood: 3 Simple Habits, By Sully Ali
How to Improve Your Mood Right Now: 3 Simple Habits I sometimes write about how a good start to your day often leads to having a good day in general. A social, an energetic or a productive start sets the context for your day. But on some days you may not get a good start for some reason. Maybe you slept badly. Or the maybe grey skies and cold summer rain is dragging your energy down. Or you might have lost that positive momentum during a hard first part of the day and after lunch you feel tired, low or lost in a somewhat sad or uninspired...
read moreLife can get Better… By Charlotte Underwood
I used to hate it when people told me that I would be okay, that life would get better and time would heal because I simply did not believe it. I still now cringe when I hear or use those sayings myself in my case my life didn’t improve. I think I’ve always had some form of mental ill health. I remember being so different to others my age, people were so alien to me and the world was so horrid though my eyes. My mother claims my first suicide attempt was at four years old. I suppose I ignored my feelings because I didn’t know any...
read moreWhy we can’t afford to ignore Stress, By Jane McNeice
April is Stress Awareness Month! Why we can’t ignore Stress Integral to all of our mental health training courses at Mind Matters is a focus on Stress. We see businesses who in fact want to focus solely on Stress, whether that is Stress prevention or Stress Management through programs like our Strengthening Personal Resilience training courses, or whether that’s our Mental Health First Aid training programs where we also give considerable time to understanding stress and its impact. So why is it so important that Stress...
read moreAccept responsibility – the key to better results and relationships, By Sully Ali
things go wrong in life, it is easy to search for a scapegoat i.e. somebody to blame so that you do not have to accept responsibility for your outcomes. Blame is a very harmful attitude to adopt. Not only are you deflecting responsibility from yourself but you are damaging your relationships by suggesting that others are holding you back. You adopt a narrow focus whereby somebody else, or something else, is to blame. There is a major problem here as you cannot improve a situation unless you actually accept responsibility. The main reason that...
read moreMHFA England Anniversary Conference: An Inspirational Day! By Jane McNeice
Having suffered a couple of months of ‘bloggers block’ and not feeling inspired to write, I have today found the ink in my pen. I had what was an amazing day with other delegates celebrating the 10th Anniversary of Mental Health First Aid (MHFA) England in Birmingham yesterday, and I now feel an overwhelming urge to write about my personal highlights and how inspired I feel to continue the work that is raising mental health literacy. The day was hosted by the lovely ITV news presenter Sameena Ali-Khan. Sameena did a fantastic job of...
read moreKeep quiet and carry on – The silent menace in the nation’s offices, by DPG
58% of UK wouldn’t be comfortable telling their manager about mental health issues. A shocking amount of UK workers have little faith in their employer’s ability to support issues such as mental health, stress and anxiety, a study by CIPD course providers, DPG Plc., has found. The study (which can be viewed in full here alongside a guide to creating a more inclusive workplace culture) found that a worrying 85% of UK workers thought that there was a stigma attached to mental health issues and stress in the workplace. This may be the root cause...
read more3 Simple Tools to Boost your Confidence, By Sully Ali
This blog is going to show you 3 simple and quick tools / methods you can use to boost your confidence. All of these things are quick boosts that you can do to help boost your confidence when you need it, and the more you use them the stronger your confidence will get in the long term, too. They will only take a few minutes to do, but none of them are magic / permanent solutions if all you ever do is use them once for 3 minutes. For best results you should practice them on an ongoing basis or use them at least once a day, and as you keep...
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