Mental Health First Aid
By Adrienne Gross
Ahhh, it’s a sunny day, and you’re out walking your dog across a bridge when a passing jogger clutches his chest, heaves over and stops breathing. What would you do? From the first aid training you may have had, or knowledge from TV shows, you may give CPR and save his life. In another life-or-death scenario, imagine instead the jogger is out on the bridge railing about to jump—what would you do?
The answer to that and other mental health crises is not one most people know. Of course, the actors in movies all seem to have the magic words to coax them down to safety, but in a real-life situation, what is needed is Mental Health First Aid (MHFA).
What is Mental Health First Aid?
Just like physical first aid, MHFA is the first treatment for an ‘injury’ to treat the immediate pain and danger or stop the development of further injury or illness. Full treatment involves therapy and/or medication for healing. Applying first aid for mental health is not just band-aid solution either, MHFA follows the principle that early intervention may avoid the development of a mental disorder, or at least act in the event of a crisis to prevent harm to self and others.
MHFA uses an acronym to summarise the treatment phases of mental health first aid:
1. Assess Risk of Suicide or Harm
2. Listen Non-judgmentally
3. Give Reassurance and Information
4. Encourage Person to Get Appropriate Professional Help
5. Encourage Self-Help Strategies
What are the types of MHFA?
Just as you would treat a snake bite differently to a burn, the guidelines and first aid for mental health crises are arranged for different situations:
? Depression
? Suicidal Thoughts and Behaviours
? Self-harm
? Panic
? Traumatic Events
? Eating disorders
? Psychosis
? Substance abuse problems
Why haven’t I heard of MHFA before?
Unlike physical emergency health treatments, MHFA is a new concept, developed in the early 2000s. Since then, many English-speaking countries all over the world have been training anyone who wants to learn, most commonly those in the emergency services, education sector, public sector and health industries.
What is MHFA training?
No-one is born knowing how to give MHFA—even the most caring and sympathetic people need to develop skills and techniques to help others. In 2009, Betty Kitchener and Professor Tony Jorm developed a training package for trainers and general people with course content to include symptoms, causes and treatments for disorders such as anxiety and depression as well as what to do in crisis situations such as a person having a panic attack or overdosing—the MHFA to be given until the patient gets professional help or the crisis resolves.
What are the benefits of MHFA training?
Apart from the obvious increased ability for a MHFA trainee to be able to help people like the jogger on the bridge, MHFA training helps a trainee to:
? stop instances of suicide and self-harm
? stop a person in a mental crisis hurting others
? increase confidence in their own ability to help others
? have greater awareness of mental illness
? reduce negative perception of mental illness
When is MHFA needed as opposed to the usual treatments?
Any health after an emergency depends on long-term treatment—you may be able to put a bandage on a leg to stop it bleeding, but you need physiotherapy to walk properly again. A person’s mental health is dependent on many factors, and once out of the immediate threat zone, must be treated with methods tailored for their situation. Thus, MHFA is used when there is an imminent threat or likelihood of worsening mental health—it is not therapy, nor is it a substitute for getting professional help from doctors, psychologists and counsellors.
Want to learn MHFA?
If you want to be an MHFA instructor, there is a 5-day course, and if you want to do a general MHFA course, there is a 12-hour version, designed to teach people how to help others who are developing a mental health problem or who are in a mental health crisis situation. Note though that even though this is a certified course, it is not a qualification for counselling.
Even if you don’t come across a person about to jump off a bridge, keep in mind that 1 in 5 people will have a mental illness in their lifetime—by knowing MHFA you can help these people to get treatment as soon as possible.
MHFA in Canberra:
http://www.mhfa.com.au/instructors_act.shtml
http://www.mhfa.com.au/current_courses.php?type=all&search=&state=ACT
Find out more:
http://www.mhfa.com.au/Guidelines.shtml
http://www.mediation.com.au/mental_health_first_aid.html
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