Mental Health First Aid Wales Reviews

Slight distraction at course start due to rooms, numbers etc.

Probably being a bit harsh in my ratings, but I guess what I was really looking for was more information on earlier detection and support, as opposed to being confronted with an extreme scenario - but that's based on my expectations.

I found the course content good, I liked the videos and hearing from people who are living recovered lives, I would have preferred for the tutor to be more involved in the learning rather than us just looking at powerpoint / discussing in our own breakout rooms.

- Instructor seemed flustered and kept repeating that she is not necessarily an expert in the subjects covered, which made me feel unsure; however she was very friendly, invited questions and we had a comfortable, informal atmosphere - video content of the course was excellent, loved the example scenes and how the actors were very believable - "nuggets" film was great to understand substance abuse pitfalls - exercises were okay, but repetitive and generic: phrases like listen unjudgmentally kept being repeated, with no real direction how to phrase questions or comments in concrete situations (e.g. ALGEE discussions were repetitive as well, i.e. "find a safe, quiet, private space for the discussion" which is important but non-specific) - lacked the element of role play: in any given scenario, the young person in question could react in a variety of different ways: as a group, it would have been helpful to act out that scenario in person with different prompts --> this would lead to greater level of confidence in applying the content - repetition: the slides used by the presenter largely repeated what we learned on the course, which was tiring and time-consuming

It was very educational, but personally due to my issues with attention span I found the repeated back and forth between videos, scenarios and group work to be quite hard to keep track of.

The knowledge I've gained from this course is really valuable to me. I feel better equipped to support mental health not only in my workplace, but in my personal life with friends and family. I think the course structure could be improved - even though it was broken up into two sessions with breaks and activities, it was still difficult to sit and listen to someone talk for a long time.

It was an interesting course. There was a lot of discussion, I'd have liked to have done a deeper dive on the effects of abuse / depressing / drugs etc. on the physiological side. Caroline led the sessions with confidence and encouraged interaction.

As an overall course it had some great content, trainers Helen and Faye were excellent and the pace was brilliant, allowing lots of contributions from the group. My only concern is that the course needs updating, and would benefit from recent statistics, and research, and local Specialist CAMHS clinicians to advise what happens in practice. To include this would give a more rounded appreciation of the process of mental health support offered in CAMHs and would be an opportunity to network with other organisations and model therapeutic questions which could be shared.

Course was helpful, would've liked to practise talking scenarios in person more. Was more reading/writing and listening than practising ourself how to speak to someone in a crisis.

Good course overall but i thought there was an over use of breakout rooms and would have been more benficial talking about the topics as a group.