Mental Health and Wellbeing Awareness
By Lorna Baldry and Tammi Owen
Over the past two years Brightlink and Heroes have increasingly received requests from education professionals and those who support people as part of their work, for online courses on mental health and wellbeing awareness.
More recently, because of our CILEx accreditation and work in the legal sector, Brightlink received some similar requests from that sector.
Brightlink and Heroes have worked together to create these requested online continuing professional development courses. The team members of both organisations bring decades of experience of work in communities, education, social care, psychotherapy, life coaching, work in prisons, business, legal sector, front line support, domestic abuse services and the armed forces.
The courses are accredited by the CPD Registration Service and will attract CPD points/ hours which are certificated.
Brightlink are supporting Mental Health Awareness Week and Learning at Work Week from 13th to 17th May with a variety of social media posts, information sharing, exclusive offers and our first newsletter. We are marking these important awareness raising weeks by launching our Mental Health and Wellbeing awareness and understanding units for lawyers and front-line support professionals.
There are two eLearning units, one which will take around an hour to complete and another which will take around three hours. Here’s what they include:
| Mental Health and Wellbeing Awareness | Understanding Mental Health and Wellbeing |
| Looking after you | Looking after you |
| Mental health and wellbeing in your work and personal life | Mental health and wellbeing in your work and personal life |
| Mental health problems | Mental health problems |
| Talking about mental health | Talking about mental health |
| Looking after your own mental health at work | Looking after your own mental health at work |
| Supporting a colleague | Supporting a colleague |
| Supporting a client | Supporting a client |
| Seeking support | Seeking support |
| Building resilience | Building resilience |
| Talking about mental health | |
| Line management and mental health | |
| Leading during change | |
| Employer checklist for wellbeing in the workplace | |
| How we see ourselves and how others see us | |
| How we communicate | |
| How we interact |
Individuals can go to the Brightlink website, buy a unit or units online and begin within a few hours https://brightlink.org.uk/cpd/
Employers who would like to purchase online programmes for a number of their staff should email connect@brightlink.org.uk to share all the information we need to create learning profiles for their teams and request an invoice.
Employees can complete the learning at their desks in work and you may choose to arrange a team lunch afterwards in which the whole team can talk about the things covered in the courses. We would advise that you have mental health and wellbeing champions or first aiders on hand to facilitate the conversation safely and that you feel ready to signpost people to further services if they are needed. Brightlink and Heroes online programmes come with references and signposting to helplines, websites and other organisations who can help and support.
If you would like to build the programmes into a professional development session, a member of the Brightlink/ Heroes team who is a qualified therapist can come to facilitate a training session which includes the online programme. Or you may find a follow up therapy session/s useful. There are a whole range of additional services we can offer that can prepare for, compliment, facilitate or follow on from the learning that takes place when you raise awareness and understanding of mental health and wellbeing. You can contact us to ask about additional services on connect@brightlink.org.uk 02921 888386 or tammi@heroestraining.co.uk