Mental illness and mental health are fast becoming part of public discourse, especially on university campuses.
“Nearly 200,000 people in Canada alone have been certified [in mental health first aid],” said Mike Pietrus, the director of the Mental Health Commission of Canada in Ottawa.
So, what is mental health first aid?
Mental health first aid (MHFA) was brought to Canada through a project by the Mental Health Commission of Canada, according to Pietrus.
MHFA, originally developed in Australia in the early 2000s, is a certification—much like physical first aid—for the public that gives a background in different mental illnesses, and prepares individuals to recognize and respond to mental health crises, Pietrus said.
The course is designed to be accessible to everyone, according to Pietrus. He added the course itself is basic.
“It’s the most recognized training out there for people in the public who want to be able to support anyone who is struggling,” he said. “If someone on the street is having a psychotic break, for example, then people who have taken the training won’t shy away from [helping] . . . they won’t fear it.”
The training also prepares individuals to assess the safety of a situation before offering assistance, Pietrus added.
What does MHFA teach you?
There is some question about whether “first aid” is the most appropriate title for the skillsets that earned by those who hold a certification in MHFA.
Juhi Sohani, the vice-president (communications) of the Student Alliance for Mental Health (SAMH) at Carleton University, said she felt the MHFA course was meant to educate individuals with no prior knowledge about mental illness.
Sohani added that she felt the course was too basic for her, but understood why it needs to be.
It gives people who don’t normally deal with mental illness as part of a job, or even frequently in day-to-day life, a set of tools so “they aren’t going in totally blind,” Sohani said.
But the accessibility of mental health first aid training doesn’t detract from its value, according to Pietrus.
“Mental health first aid should be viewed the same as physical first aid,” he said. “Everyone should have it.”
There are other mental-health-specific training courses out there, such as SafeTALK, a program that teaches individuals all about suicide prevention. But Pietrus said MHFA and other programs have different goals in mind.
“They can’t be compared, because they’re trying to do two different things,” he said.
“This training doesn’t address the fact that our system is overcrowded, nor does it address the long wait times or expenses that face people trying to get professional help. But what mental health first aid does is evoke understanding and compassion in the people who receive the training.”—Maureen Murdock, director of Carleton’s Health and Counselling Services
Who is trained on campus?
“All campus safety officers are trained in ASIST, which is suicide prevention, and Mental Health First Aid,” said Allan Burns, the director of university safety at Carleton.
While all of Carleton’s campus security officers are equipped with mental-health-specific training, MHFA is only voluntary training for student leaders on campus.
The Carleton University Student Emergency Response Team (CUSERT) has mandatory physical first aid training, but no training to respond to mental health emergencies, said Brianna Hogg, the communications executive at CUSERT.
For the most part, CUSERT just focuses on physical first aid and emergency situations, Hogg said.
“[But] mental health training would definitely be beneficial,” she added.
Even for residence fellows, MHFA is only an optional component of their training, according to Sarah Tompkins, a fifth-year neuroscience student.
She said she took the training because she knew it would be beneficial, not only for her residence fellow position, but as a friend to people who struggle with mental illness.
“[A mental health crisis is] so overwhelming . . . it’s not something you can immediately fix,” Tompkins said. But she added the training made her feel comfortable helping friends navigate mental health issues.
Tompkins said the training exercises during the mental health first aid course helped her understand what people with various mental illnesses are experiencing during a crisis or emergency situation.
“There was one really cool exercise we did . . . to help understand schizophrenia, where we were in groups of three and one person had to talk in someone’s ear while they were having a conversation with someone else, to see what it was like,” Tompkins said. “You think, ‘Oh, just block it out, just block it out’, but it’s hard.”
There are projects in motion to change how many student leaders have MHFA qualifications, however, according to Charissa Feres, vice-president (student issues) of SAMH.
Feres said the training generally ranges from $200 to $300, so offering the course on campus makes it more accessible.
The Carleton University Students’ Association (CUSA) will be training their 18 service centre co-ordinators in
MHFA at the end of this semester, according to CUSA president Fahd Alhattab. This includes co-ordinators at the Womyn’s Centre, the Gender and Sexuality Resource Centre, and the Health and Wellness Centre.
“Most people that seek out help for their mental health . . . do it within their own communities,” Alhattab said. “So all [co-ordinators] need to be trained in mental health first aid.”
He said the service centre co-ordinators currently have safe space and physical first aid training.
“We’re putting a lot of money towards making sure we’re leaders in mental health and this is another piece of the puzzle,” Alhattab said.
He added that if students are interested in MHFA training, CUSA can look into providing subsidized training in the next semester.
Why take MHFA?
“People learn empathy,” said Maureen Murdock, the director of Carleton’s Health and Counselling Services.
Murdock said she volunteers to teach mental health first aid courses about once a month at Carleton, even though she doesn’t get any compensation for doing so.
Although some people who attend the course are disappointed because it isn’t quite as advanced as they had expected, the value of doing the training should not be underestimated, she added.
“They weren’t criticizing the program, but . . . they already knew most of the content and were looking for something more advanced,” Murdock said. She added the MHFA course she teaches is called “Basic Mental Health First Aid.”
There are both basic MHFA courses and more advanced ones that focus on topics like youth and Indigenous mental health, according to Mental Health First Aid Canada.
Murdock said MHFA is important because mental illness affects everyone. She said there are so many people who are are ignorant to mental illness and mental health struggles, but by taking a MHFA course, they learn how to be there for someone.
“This training doesn’t address the fact that our system is overcrowded, nor does it address the long wait times or expenses that face people trying to get professional help,” Murdock said. “But what mental health first aid does is evoke understanding and compassion in the people who receive the training.”
