Levelling the Playing Field recently organised Mental Health First Aid (MHFA) training for Youth Justice Service staff in Croydon, south London.
The two-day course was delivered to 11 Croydon Youth Justice Service colleagues in July by Diane Rouillon from our specialist partner Centre of Change, a counselling and mental health service.
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, respond and refer, even in a crisis.
“The course is like a physical first aid course in which you might learn how to do CPR or stem the flow of blood, then pass on to other medical services,” explains Diane. “It’s about giving people the tools to be that gap between someone who needs support until they can access professional help if needed.”
The MHFA course is part of Levelling the Playing Field’s work to forge multi-agency partnerships in London (with similar work ongoing in our three other initial delivery areas, the West Midlands, Gwent and South Yorkshire) to support ethnically diverse children most effectively.
Work in ongoing in South London to strengthen connections between the community sport organisations in our network - including Gloves Not Gunz, Urban Yogis and Palace for Life Foundation – with local youth justice services and Centre of Change.
The MHFA course certainly achieved that. Diane reflects: “Building relationships is a really key thing. None of us can do everything that a young person needs, it’s about understanding who else is in the jigsaw puzzle so that a young person can be best supported.
“The course teaches people how to spot what’s going on with a young person and how and where to refer them on. We also talk about what other interventions can be put in place. It also raised awareness that Centre of Change exists and started conversation about how we can work together.”
Diane adds that the course helped the Youth Justice workers have more empathy with young people caught up in the justice system.
She explains: “It helps course participants understand how they might interact better with young people. If they are displaying violent tendencies or anger, it’s about recognising that they might be mental health symptoms rather than just an angry or unruly youth who has an issue with authority. We look at the layers beneath that.
“Our work helps them understand how to come into a young person’s sphere, build better relationships, avoid criminalising them and hopefully achieve better outcomes.”
The MHFA course also looked at mental health support through an equality, diversity and inclusion (EDI) lens. “We look at the inequalities of how young black males in particular are treated when it comes to mental health,” says Diane. “It’s about helping them to be more empathic, how best to interact, language to use and giving staff a whole network for resources and signposting.”
Anonymous feedback showed the course was “interactive, insightful and informal” with statistics showing greatly enhanced confidence and knowledge around the subject of mental health.
Levelling the Playing Field manager Rudro Sen said: "We are delighted to have been able to offer this training to Croydon Youth Justice Service which we hope will progress our goal of bringing together multi-agency partners in the area to support at-risk ethnically diverse children more effectively."