Some of you know that since this summer I have been employed as a full-time mental health trainer with a national charity. I asked my beautiful Twitter followers what they wanted to know about the role (as I get asked a lot of questions about it) and here’s what they said…

Please note, all opinions expressed are that of my own, and do not necessarily represent that of the organisations I work for.

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How did you get into it? What sort of training did you undergo? @good_shit_daily

To be totally honest, I’m still trying to work this one out. In my last job (an assistant psychologist in a secure forensic psychiatric hospital) I began training new staff on topics like maintaining boundaries with patients, self-harm and reporting incidents. I loved it! I loved the discussions, different opinions, people having those light bulb moments etc.

At the same sort of time I was falling out of love with the role more generally (feel free to read more about why if you wish to here) and was looking for a job where I could make more of a difference. I’d heard about Mental Health First Aid and began to explore this more. I didn’t really want to just do the course, as my previous roles and degree covered a lot of it, so I began thinking what if I could teach it, and use my personal and professional experiences to educate others. I applied to become an instructor, choosing to focus on the Youth Programme as I believe we have to start the conversation around mental health sooner and this is where I felt I could make most impact.

I completed my training for that at the beginning of this year. This involves a 7 day course spread over 6 weeks, followed by two co-deliveries. From there I’ve freelanced, gong into schools and youth centres teaching those working with young people how to support their mental health and then was then fortunate enough to stumble across my current role.

Full-time trainer jobs with regular pay are incredibly rare, and I’m aware I’m incredibly lucky to have one with such a well-known organisation. I was signed up to notifications from Indeed, LinkedIn and Charity Job and this was how I found my role. The application process was fairly standard but the interview involved delivering a short training session, reflecting on it and then answering more generalised interview questions.

The rest, as they say, is history.

What’s been the most challenging part? @good_shit_daily

For me, its been my own judgements really. I’ve been in the field of mental health for nearly a decade and have experienced mental health issues since I was a child. It’s easy to forget that for a lot of people in the sessions I offer it is the first time they’ve even thought about mental health. They come with all the stigma and prejudice that the general public have, and I have to remind myself they don’t mean to, it’s just all they’ve ever known. I can find myself getting quite annoyed or deflated when people keep using stigmatising language and have to work hard on reminding myself that’s exactly why I’m there, to challenge it.

When people have crossed the line, some with seriously inappropriate jokes, I find challenging those hard. It’s hard to reprimand one person without it having a huge impact on the feel of the session. Unfortunately this has happened more times than I anticipated and I’ve had to find ways of doing it appropriately. It can feel a bit school-teachery but these people are at work, and need to behave professionally and respectfully, especially when we’re talking about people’s lived experience of an illness.

I also find the feedback forms at the end of the day really hard – 20 of them could say I’m the best human alive but if one is slightly indifferent, or heaven forbid negative, I take it really personally and let it cloud the whole day. But I’m slowly learning you can’t win ’em all.

What do they teach you so that you can switch off and help your own mental health? Like coping mechanisms that sort of thing? @office_monkey

I haven’t really had any formal ‘teaching’ to become a trainer, it just kind of naturally evolved. The MHFA training is quite brief (only 7 days) and is primarily focused on learning the course so this didn’t really address self-care.

For myself, one of the keys has been recognising I’m in the right place in terms of my recovery. I have reasonable insight, a good support network and generally manage okay with the right meds and support. I wouldn’t have been in a position to do the job a few years back when I had much more active symptoms on a regular basis. You hear some shocking things when engaging with the public on mental health and you need to not be able to take that personally or get defensive.

My line manager is fab, as is my whole team, we’ve all done the on the ground training and so have all come across similar difficulties so we really call on one another if we need support. We have a WhatsApp group – it can be lonely when you’re out on the road training so being able to kind of contact your colleagues informally is really helpful, especially if a course is difficult – they can provide reassurance/advice or just a good meme to brighten your day.

For me l’ve found accepting stigma really hard. Comments people make can get to me – if you follow me on Twitter you might have seen a lady once said I shouldn’t have shared my own experience, I should have pretended they were someone else’s. I’ve had to learn to be really honest and seek support when things like this happen or it eats away at you.

How much do you draw on your own experiences when you train people? @cbutterwick

This is a tricky one as it changes a lot. I usually disclose that my motivation for doing the job is personal experience of mental illness. Sometimes I then never reference it again. Other days, I’m much more open and will elaborate on diagnoses as we move through the day and give clear examples from my own life. It really depends on the group. I also draw on stories from my clinical career – sharing some of my former patients experiences. I think that’s really important as they’re very much a voiceless community.

With training however, unlike some of the campaigning work I do, it’s really not about you and your lived experience – it’s about the wider issue. If I think something in my life might help make a point or increase understanding, I might share it – sometimes I say ‘I have a friend who…’ even if it’s my experience. I’m very aware of not turning my courses into a lived experience piece as that really isn’t what they’re paying for, and it’s not all that helpful.

The only major exception is Youth Mental Health First Aid, as I work with MHFA England on the grounds that I am a person with lived experience of severe mental illness from a young age. I had some really awful experiences with teaching staff at my school and I share those and the impact they had a lot more to make a point on how damaging getting things wrong can be.

Generally, I just check in with how I’m feeling that day. I’ve had a couple of people say I shouldn’t share my experiences, because it made them uncomfortable, so I just think if I do say this, am I prepared for a potential negative response. Some days I am, and I’m very assured that that is their stigma, not mine, but other days I wouldn’t be able to so I share less.

Are you self-employed or do you work for someone? What qualifications do you need? @pjshaw192 & @JessicaXDiamond

When I began with MHFA, I freelanced for a few months, on a self-employed basis. Now I work for a national charity in a standard full-time contract. As I’ve said these are incredibly rare and I feel genuinely blessed to have managed to secure one, as freelancing is really hard work!

I personally don’t have any formal training qualifications aside from MHFA Instructor training. But even that wasn’t required, most of my colleagues are not MHFA Instructors. We all come from different backgrounds from therapists to teachers, cooperates etc. The only real experience needed was experience of delivering training (ideally related to mental health/wellbeing in some way).

What’s a question you get that you didn’t expect to? @pigletish

Oh gosh, so many. The worst was when I was with an individual sharing their lived experience of mental illness and he was asked if he had “caught” his illness off someone. I was so confused and shocked but thankfully he handled it like a pro.

The humour people use – although not directly questions – has also been pretty shocking too. People making [quite graphic] jokes about suicide, using language inappropriately etc. has been really surprising. It really brings home how far we have to go with things. Knowing how to respond to that hasn’t been easy.

Because a lot of the work we do is in workplaces we get asked a lot about people faking mental illness to take sick days. That was weird to begin with but you develop a sort of rehearsed answer as you get asked it so much. Similarly we get people asking if GP’s overprescribe antidepressants and why ‘everyone’ is on them ‘these days’. People often say they don’t ‘believe’ in medication for mental illnesses which is a weird one – would they say they don’t believe in medication for cancer or diabetes?

People often have a lot of questions around Schizophrenia, as they hold so many misconceptions around it. Things like is it a split personality, are these people dangerous etc. But I quite like this, as I want those to be challenged. I had one course who kept saying “non-violent/violent Schizophrenia” and no matter how much I explained there’s no such thing and generally individuals living with Schizophrenia aren’t violent they kept doing it. That was exhausting!

What skills do you need to do the job? @pjshaw192

Practically, there’s a lot to think about if you want to get into training. Things like coping with being away from home a lot (on average I sleep in hotels 2-3 nights per week), having to cope with trains and getting to and from venues alone, being alone most of the time. I love it – it’s like I’m paid to have an adventure – but at times it can feel pretty bleak, especially when getting on you 30th train of the week and still having 2 hours ’til you get home.

In terms of delivering training an ability to think on your feet is important, as you get asked all sorts of weird and wonderful questions. Also an ability to feel confident is challenging/disagreeing with opinions – this is really hard but so important, otherwise delegates almost end up leading the session.

Obviously time management is key, we generally run 7 hour courses, and squeezing it all in, especially with big, talkative groups is hard work. It can feel a bit awkward to cut people off and turn the focus back to the session but it’s something you have to do.

How do you manage those who think mental illness is a choice? @rediscovering.zhang

To be totally honest, this is one of the easier battles to win. The trick is to stay calm and highlight the medical model – would someone say cancer is a choice? Or diabetes? Probably not, so why say mental illness is a choice. Would anyone really ever choose to be in psychological distress? You kind of rationalise them out of that view. It’s hard to stay calm, but if you follow a logical argument they can’t really come back at you. There will always be people though who, no matter what you say, they won’t change their opinion, and accepting that is hard.

Do you find it triggering for you in anyway? If so, how do you cope with that? @yana.org.uk

Some days, absolutely. I find people disclosing their own struggles hard, especially if it’s a lot of people in one day. It can feel totally overwhelming to have strangers bare their souls to you. I’ve heard some pretty harrowing stories, which I never would have anticipated, and they can really sit with you.

I also find the Black Dog video very triggering if I connect with it. It’s such a powerful representation of one of the darkest places I have been. If I were to watch it the 2-3 times a week I played it I’d be a wreck on the floor. I have to tune it out – usually by going on my phone.

On Youth Mental Health First Aid there is a section on eating disorders, which I find really hard. That really is the sickest I have ever been, and going back there feels intense. But I also feel full of passion to ensure people understand what eating disorders are, and most importantly what they are not. You also have to read out a lengthy suicide note on that course, and doing that always feels incredibly hard, as I’ve written one myself in the past.

As I’ve said, stigma also gets to me a lot.

We’re told to make sure we put boundaries up – to make sure we take our breaks, leaving the venue if possible, to allow ourselves time to refresh. Also if a course is becoming more like a therapy session than a training course we’ll turn it back, being respectful to what people have shared but highlighting the boundaries of the session – it’s not group therapy, we’re not trained counsellors and we shouldn’t be treated as one.

We’re also encouraged to use TOIL (time owed) on the mornings following training sessions. I usually take the morning off ’til 11am to catch up on sleep after travelling home and to decompress. My supervisor is always on hand to chat about anything and I can be really honest with her – if I just need to vent about a difficult session it’s totally fine, which is great.

What’s been the highlights? @pjshaw192

There’s been a lot! Any time someone stays behind to thank me, and shares something really personal, it blows my mind. I’ve had two ladies disclose really difficult life situations who told me the session had made them realise they need to take care of their mental health, and I found that incredible and really emotional. At times, the training can feel like going through the motions, especially when we deliver the same 6-8 courses over and over, but when you realise you’re having a real impact on people’s lives it’s incredible.

I also love when people who admit to being quite ignorant to mental health have lightbulb moments and suddenly understand it a bit more. They’re the ones who need the training the most and so to watch their attitude change over a few hours is really special.

I also did one course that was all male and that will really stick with me. They were proper working class labourers, a tiny rooms of around 20-25 men, and they got so involved. I could barely get a word in edgeways. It was amazing! I was worried they’d scoff me out the room but they loved it. No one had ever given them a chance to talk about their mental health before and they really needed it. That was a really special day, although I was completed exhausted afterwards!

I hope you found this interesting or helpful! If there is anything else you want to know feel free to drop me a message.

Lorna

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