What seems a very long time ago, a senior health and safety friend of mine agreed to sit in on some associate trainer interviews to support me.
Her conclusion at the end of our day together was “what we need in the field of mental health and wellbeing is qualifications”.
It is interesting that in spite of wanting to create parity between mental and physical first aid, where Physical First Aid courses require a test and qualification, until the release of these new qualifications, no checking of the knowledge gained has existed in the mental health first aid arena.
So began a long journey to create peer-reviewed mental health qualifications for the workplace with respected provider Highfield. Today this suite of qualifications is not only available, but the training and the exam can be provided online as well as face to face. The qualifications are:
- Introduction to mental health and wellbeing (level 2)
- Introduction to first aid for mental health in the workplace (level 2)
- Introduction to managing health and wellbeing in the workplace (for people managers – level 3)
WHY DID MY HEALTH AND SAFETY FRIEND THINK WE NEEDED QUALIFICATIONS?
The world of training in mental health and wellbeing is very different from that of other subjects within health and safety. Normally official bodies create peer-reviewed learning outcomes which go through rigorous review, but which can be delivered in a way that suits the trainer and the audience (using methods and PowerPoints developed and tailored to the customer by the trainer themselves – with the option to license these from the official qualifications provider). An exam or test is undergone at the end by the participant, to show the learning outcomes have been appropriately delivered and understood, and the certificate or qualification is issued based on successful completion of that test. Think of e.g. IOSH’s Managing Safely. The workplace mental health and wellbeing world is completely different and is currently loosely divided into two types of providers.- Those respected training providers in the mental health world who offer courses where there is no testing of the learning outcomes in place, where the content and presentation is set by the provider of the course and which cannot be construed as Ofqual registered qualifications (such as MHFA courses which we together with many other training providers, can provide in England).
- Those (generally smaller) consultants and trainers who have created their own courses where the courses are delivered in presentations created by the consultant themselves. Unlike those set courses, they can be tailored to the organisation (This is also us, together with many of our fellow mental health and wellbeing trainers who don’t want to be constrained by someone else’s course design).