HOW TRAINING, EDUCATION, & RESEARCH HELPED ME TO PREPARE TO WORK AT A HUGE NHS EVENT

"Good fortune is what happens when opportunity meets with planning."

Thomas Edison

On a bi-monthly basis, Cumbria, Northumberland, Tyne and Wear NHS Foundation Trust (CNTW), host a Service User and Carer Reference Group (which you can read more about on their website; here). For October’s, I attended as a Lived Experience Reporter for the first time and with the idea that I’m NOT Disordered probably has hundreds of readers who attend big events, I have put together this blog post, where I’ll talk through all the ways – emotional and practical – in which I’ve prepared for this NHS event, as well as some advice…

MY JOURNEY FACILITATING TRAINING IN MENTAL HEALTH WITH ADVICE TO HELP YOU DO IT TOO!!! | LAUNCHING UNDERSTAND WITH IND

“The great aim of education is not knowledge, but action.”

Herbert Spencer

A number of years ago, I was asked to co-facilitate mental health training for the new recruits of my local Police force (Northumbria Police) in partnership with Cumbria, Northumberland, Tyne and Wear NHS Foundation Trust (CNTW). It was my first experience of doing something like that, but it remains one of the most enjoyable, influential, and educational opportunities I’ve ever had in the entirety of my blogging career! So, since then, I’ve gone to take on a number of additional, similar commitments and with those experiences and a recent decision in mind, I have created Understand with IND and its five Training Programmes. To launch it and acknowledge its feature in the brand-new pages on I’m NOT Disordered, I’ve put together this piece which is full of accounts of my experiences in facilitating training around mental health as well as things I’ve learnt from them, and advice I would give to budding facilitators…

BEHIND-THE-SCENES OF A SUICIDE AWARENESS TRAINING SESSION WITH THE BRITISH TRANSPORT POLICE

I wasn’t sure how to blog about the training session I’ve just facilitated with the British Transport Police, and then I noticed that my ‘Behind-The-Scenes’ posts seem to do really well… I think a lot of that is about the naturally curious nature of people and the want to gain insight into something you may be interested in but have little or no experience of. So, here’s a bit about what goes on in training with the Police; from the initial discussions to the actual session…

How it came about

Over a year ago, I was on a train when a drunken man began giving a ton of verbal abuse to the Train Manager and myself. So much so that we ended up going to the British Transport Police (BTP) when we got off the train and gave our statements. The Officer who took charge of the entire incident; Richie, was really lovely and helpful and I ended up telling him all about my mental health problems and that I’d helped Steve Baker and Claire Andre deliver mental health training sessions for the new recruits of Northumbria Police. It didn’t take us long to start discussing the prospect of me facilitating some training for the BTP officers too.