Levelling the Playing Field is offering Mental Health First Aid (MHFA) training to its network of partners in Croydon, south London. 

MHFA is an internationally recognised training course which teaches people how to spot the signs and symptoms of mental ill health and provide help on a first aid basis. 

MHFA England training won’t teach you to be a therapist, but just like physical first aid, it will teach you to listen, reassure and respond, even in a crisis. 

The two-day MHFA course will be delivered in November by Diane Rouillon (below) from our specialist partners Centre of Change, a specialist counselling and mentoring service in Croydon. 

Attendees will be invited from across our specialist partners in the community, the Secure Estate and statutory services to help them support ethnically diverse children within the Levelling the Playing Field network most effectively. 

Course leader Diane is Assistant Director at Centre of Change, whose team of 18 counsellors and mentors work with young people from the age of 10 who are referred by schools, social services, the NHS and other agencies. 

They may have been excluded (or be at-risk of exclusion) from schools or Pupil Referral Units, or be involved (or at-risk of involvement) with the Criminal Justice System. 

Centre of Change put together individual packages of support depending on each young person’s needs. 

Their workforce reflects the community they serve. “We are very much embedded in our ward, New Addington in Croydon,” said Diane. “We’re very keen to have local mentors from a range of backgrounds, ethnicities and with lived experience. Those who have had their own struggles instinctively understand what it’s like.” 

Levelling the Playing Field is glad to be investing in Centre of Change and linking their work to our specialist partners in Croydon, equipping their frontline sport delivery staff to support children’s mental health. 

Rudro Sen, Levelling the Playing Field Project Leader, said: “The training also gives our partners in Croydon a good networking opportunity for statutory and community organisations. Connecting the Youth Justice Service with our local specialist sport partners will hopefully create sustainable relationships and mutual understanding.”