Mental Health First Aid Standard
Mental Health First Aid (MHFA) is the support provided to a person who may be experiencing a decline in their mental well-being or a mental health crisis.
Course Objectives
In the MHFA course, you will gain a solid understanding of the 5 basic actions of ALGEE:
Assess the risk of suicide and/or harm
Listen non-judgmentally
Give reassurance
Encourage professional support
Encourage other supports
ALGEE is the framework for having a confident conversation about mental health with family, friends, colleagues, and strangers.
Key outcomes
International evaluations and feedback have found the following outcomes for participants undertaking an MHFA course:
- Increased awareness of signs and symptoms of the most common mental health problems
- Decreased stigma related to mental health
- Increased confidence interacting with individuals experiencing a mental health problem or crisis
- Increased help actually provided to individuals in crisis or experiencing a mental health problem
Crisis first aid skills learned
- Substance overdose
- Suicidal behaviour
- Panic attack
- Acute stress reaction
- Psychotic episode
Topics
1. Mental Health and Stigma
- What is Mental Health First Aid?
- Common mental health problems
- Five basic actions of mental health first aid
- Stigma and discrimination
2. Substance-related disorders
- What is a substance-related disorder?
- Signs and symptoms
- Risk factors
- MHFA for substance-related problems
- Crisis first aid for overdose
- Treatment and resources
3. Mood-related disorders
- What is a mood-related disorder?
- Types of mood-related disorders
- Signs and symptoms
- Risk factors
- Substance use and mood disorders
- Suicide in Canada
- MHFA for mood-related problems
- Reasons for non-suicidal self-injury (NSSI)
- MHFA for non-suicidal self-injury
- Treatment and resources
4. Anxiety and trauma-related disorders
- disorders?
- Types of anxiety and trauma related disorders
- Signs and symptoms
- Risk factors
- Substance use and anxiety related disorders
- MHFA for anxiety and trauma related problems
- Crisis first aid for panic attacks
- Crisis first aid for acute stress reactions
- Treatment and resources
5. Psychotic disorders
- What is a psychotic disorder?
- Types of psychotic disorders
- Signs and symptoms
- Risk factors
- Substance use and psychotic disorders
- MHFA for anxiety problems
- Crisis first aid for psychotic episodes
MHFA Resources
- Mar 02, 2023
Mental health is a vital aspect of your overall health. As you grow older, you can experience changes in your physical health, social connections, and daily routines that can significantly affect your quality of life, your mood and well-being.
- Feb 02, 2023
Stigma leads me to write this under a pseudonym. Why? Because my child is kind, caring, generous and resilient, among many other great qualities.
- Oct 27, 2022
Recent events have highlighted the need for change in how we do business, manage operations, and provide psychological safe space for the workforce. What we perceived as “working” before, it would seem, is no longer working.
MHFA Case Studies
- Dec 23, 2022
In Saskatchewan, Kindergarten to Grade 12 (K-12) education is a shared responsibility between the Ministry of Education, under the authority of the Minister of Education, and locally elected boards of education. There are 27 school divisions in Saskatchewan, including public school divisions, separate school divisions, and the francophone school division.
- May 13, 2022
Founded in 1983 in Canada, nabs is a unique charity specifically designed to support the health and well-being of all individuals in the media, marketing, and communications industry in Canada.
- Jun 22, 2021
In 2018, Loblaw started working on being more proactive by providing store managers with the tools they need to respond to mental health crises in the workplace.