Member Article

Charity helps to raise awareness of Mental Health

A local charity, which was established to raise awareness and educate people about the issues of mental health problems in young people, has funded a training course to help teaching staff at a Greater Manchester school.

The Youth Mental Health First Aid (MHFA) training was organised by Ben James, the brother of 30-year-old Anthony James Seddon who sadly took his own life in 2013 after struggling with bipolar disorder.

The Anthony Seddon Fund is a registered charity, which was set up by Anthony’s family to raise awareness and help children and young people in all areas relating to mental health and wellbeing.

Ben, who works as a teaching assistant at Samuel Laycock School in Ashton-under-Lyne, Greater Manchester, invited award winning workplace training and consultancy company, HearFirst to deliver a two day course for his colleagues and participants from other local schools.

Up to fifteen people attended the course, which is an internationally recognised training programme designed specifically for people teaching, working, living with or caring for young people aged 11-18 years old.

The training provides information, tools and techniques to promote a young person’s mental and emotional wellbeing and enables participants to support a young person who might be experiencing mental and emotional distress.

Feedback was very positive with delegates praising how the training will help the school to support young people in future. One delegate found the course ‘excellent and would be really beneficial as INSET at Samuel Laycock’. Another commented that they found it ‘very thought provoking and enjoyed applying the incidents to a case study which made it more real’ whilst one delegate said ‘I found it very useful and it has given me confidence to help the young people I work with’.

Ben said: “I feel very proud of the work my family are doing to raise awareness of mental health issues and this training is a positive step towards that goal”.

Julie Ryder, Director and Founder of HearFirst, said: “The two day Youth MHFA training aims to give delegates a greater awareness to spot and identify the signs of mental health issues and give them confidence helping a young person experiencing a problem.

“Statistics show that 1 in 10 young people experience emotional and mental health problems but that figure reduces to somewhere between 1 in 4 and 1 in 6 by the time young people become adults.

“Research also highlights that suicide is the second most common cause of death in young people aged between 15-24 and evidence suggests that early intervention is hugely beneficial.

“It’s such a worthwhile gesture that the course was funded by The Anthony Seddon Fund and it highlights that he still has a long lasting legacy by helping other people. It’s pleasing that delegates found the course very beneficial and hopefully they will be able to apply what they have learnt in future.”

The Youth MHFA course is aligned with national policy and aims to promote the common assessment framework (CAF), Healthy Schools and Targeted Mental Health in Schools (TaMHS). It also has a particular focus on vulnerable groups of young people including looked after children (LAC) and promotes the use of substance misuse screening tools.

Anthony and Ben’s mum, Donna Thomas, who is also a trustee of The Anthony Seddon Fund, said: “We care passionately about raising awareness of mental health issues in our local area. We were unable to help Anthony in the end but we can and will help other families wherever possible”.

HearFirst provides a full range of equality and diversity training courses to organisations across the UK. For more information on deaf, disability awareness and BSL training, please contact Julie at HearFirst on 01706 872 816 or visit www.hearfirst.org.uk

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by HearFirst .