Mental Health First Aider Training

For the majority who were in attendance, we discussed what their role will look like across the year, how they can promote positive mental health strategies within their classrooms and beyond and how they would be leading special initiatives throughout the year to raise awareness of looking after their and others' mental health. Those who did not attend for various reasons will still receive their training at another time soon.

We handed out badges (possibly the most exciting part at this stage!) and then had an interesting discussion about a scenario which was as follows: 

"You have been feeling kind of angry lately. Little things make you lose your temper, and you are yelling at your family a lot. You even stormed out of your classroom when you got an answer wrong in class. You don’t understand why you are feeling this way. What could you do to help yourself feel better?"

After some teaching about how the brain manages stress, and sharing some information on the science of calming down, the children were able to come up with a great range of supportive ideas already - see the ideas they came up with below.