This year the theme for World Mental Health Day is: Dignity in Mental Health - Psychological & Mental Health First Aid for All. Mental Health First Aid teaches first aid skills in how to help someone you’re concerned about who is developing a mental health problem, experiencing a worsening of an existing mental illness or a mental health crisis.
The 4-hour Mental Health First Aid for the Suicidal Person Course is based on our revised Mental Health First Aid Guidelines for Suicidal Thoughts and Behaviours. This course was launched today on World Mental Health Day.
Mental Health First Aid Australia wholeheartedly supports the position statement on marriage equality released today by Mental Health Australia. People who identify as LGBTIQ have higher rates of mental illness and suicide than the general community. Any discrimination that targets LGBTIQ people has a negative impact on their mental health. We call on the Australian Government to save the $160 million committed to holding a plebiscite on marriage equality and instead pass marriage equality laws through the Parliament. Learn more here.
The Aboriginal & Torres Strait Islander MHFA Program Manager is a Melbourne based part-time position, which holds overall responsibility of the training content and development of the program currently primarily funded through grants from the Australian Government. This is an identified role.
We're looking for consumer advocates to take part in two films we're producing on what it's like to live with an anxiety disorder for our upcoming 4th edition Youth and Standard MHFA Courses. Filming will take place in Melbourne later this year. For any enquiries contact Maddison Watts at maddisonw@mhfa.com.au. See attached document for more information.
Congratulations to Aboriginal MHFA Instructor Leilani Darwin. At the recent National Suicide Prevention Conference in Canberra, Leilani was awarded the 2016 National LiFE Award for Excellence in Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Suicide Prevention for a program she has developed called the United Health Education and Learning Program (UHELP) in consultation with the community.
We are thrilled to announce that the World Federation for Mental Health has set the theme for World Mental Health Day 2016 as 'psychological and mental health first aid for all.'
We are grateful for two recent funding announcements for MHFA: the Victorian State Government announced over the weekend that 750 people will be trained in MHFA as part of a relief package for dairy farmers and the Coalition Government today announced that over 3,000 job seekers and 450 school attendance officers will be trained in Aboriginal & Torres Strait Islander MHFA
The Mental Health First Aid International Manual is now available in the shop. This manual is most relevant to people living in developed countries, which have established mental health care systems equivalent in standard to those in Australia and where the culture could be described as Western. Purchase here
MHFA Australia has been successful in receiving a small grant from the Ian Potter Foundation: www.ianpotter.org.au for the next 12 months to conduct a pilot evaluation of a Junior teen MHFA course for high school students in Years 7-9.