Becoming a Fundamental Wellbeing Instructor Part Three: The Fundamentals

Evidence-based research, compliance, guidelines and research (stay with us)…

One of the most time-consuming things is writing a factual, well-researched, engaging and compliant course, which is why it’s one of the best reasons to become a Fundamental Wellbeing Instructor – as we have already done all this for you!

For those that want a bit of background information as to where the course has come from and how we created it, we will be looking at the nitty-gritty of the Fundamentals today in Part Three!

Following the HSE Guidelines

The Health and Safety Executive (HSE) is Britain’s national regulator for workplace health and safety. It prevents work-related death, injury and ill health. Included within this is the ‘Mental Health Conditions, Work and The Workplace’ guidance, which we have used to ensure all content covered on the Fundamental suite of courses is in line with regulations.

References

We include reference to and actively complement advice from the NHS and recognised organisations such as; Mental Health Foundation, Office for National Statistics (ONS), IAPT, as well as sign-posting and further information from UK mental health charities such as; MIND, Samaritans, Hub of Hope, CALM, Papyrus, Young Minds (you can see a full list of crisis contacts here)

Written by

The course and accompanying manual ‘The Good Mental Health Guide’© have been written by our Director of Product Development & Founder, Rich Craddock-Wright. With over 20 years of experience writing and designing courses within the first aid industry, Rich really is a genius at this stuff! His expertise and wisdom really take our courses to another level and most importantly creates a delegate learning journey like no other! As an accredited Mental Health First Aid Instructor, Rich worked with other mental health professionals, workplace wellbeing specialists, and professional coaches to launch this suite of Fundamental Wellbeing courses. 

Our aim is simple with all our courses – we want to create heroes-on-standby across the UK! Do you want to come and be a hero maker with us?

What makes us different?

We know that the Fundamental suite of courses is based on research, recognised guidelines, compliance, and evidence. So how do we turn this into an engaging, empowering course?

These courses are created to be ‘different by design’ and not replicate what is already available in the market. We aim to increase the choice and style of courses and content. For example:

• The Fundamental courses focus on what we can do to help, directly assisting with mental health concerns and a strong emphasis on promoting wellbeing.
• We do not have a technical focus on clinical (NICE) guidance, but instead, we work to actively complement Mental Health charities and the NHS.
• We only use a few carefully selected statistics to highlight mental health problems, and prevalence and offer ‘myth busting’. This keeps the focus on actions over ‘statistics’. 
• We work hard not to emphasise or highlight demographics so as not to create ‘profiling’ or unconscious bias. 
• There is a significant emphasis on providing ongoing support, nurturing wellbeing and self-care above and beyond referring to professional help.
• These courses are about being proactive rather than reactive.
• We discuss ways that we can all help our mental wellbeing and resilience and aim to prevent mental ill-health in ourselves and others.

These courses are not about having all the answers or teaching people to have the solutions to other people’s problems. It’s about genuine empathy for others and helping individuals recognise ‘alarm bells’ to help prevent illness or decline in wellbeing. 

How we communicate this to delegates

Our courses…

• Are realistic, engaging, relaxed and fun. We believe people learn better that way.
• Are based on common sense, with practicality over technicality. 
• Promote friendly relatable terminology that is consistent throughout our presentations and style of training. 
• Banish tests to concentrate on confidence-building practical time.
• Educate on a range of health conditions, taking an ‘entire’ non-diagnostic approach.
• Are based on a central action plan (that is unashamedly repetitive!)
• Do not put a barrier in place of people helping children.
• Do not have an emphasis on anatomy & physiology.
• Give careful attention to avoiding superfluous information and anecdotes without good reason; these may be remembered instead of essential information.

These courses are designed to be accessible to a broad audience:

• These courses are designed to be suitable for most adults and are accessible in design for those with limited existing knowledge or experience in the subject of mental health.
• Written with a strict awareness to avoid the ‘assumption of understanding’, instructors are positioned as ’empathic experts’ rather than technical experts.

Modules

On the Fundamental Wellbeing First Aid 2-day course, you will take the delegates through 5 modules.

Module 1 – Mental Health Matters

Module 2 – The Pressure Pot

Module 3 – Mental Health First Aid Actions

Module 4 – Experiencing Anxiety

Module 5 – Experiencing Depression

In part four of this series, you’ll pick up lots of tips and pointers about how becoming part of the SkillBase First Aid Instructor Network will help you whether you are self-employed or a workplace-based Fundamental Wellbeing trainer. See you then! If you’d like to jump there now, here is the link!

SkillBase First Aid are experts in delivering confidence building Fundamental Wellbeing Instructor courses. For more information, dates or to make your booking call us on 0330 335 1234, or click here.