Katrina - Promoting Mental Health Improvement Training
Katrina Finnon, who works in the Social Work Department in Dundee (Strategy, Performance and Support Service) went on the Promoting Mental Health Improvement – Raising Awareness training in 2004. One of Katrina's primary remits, at that time, was to design and oversee a promoting health strategy for the social work department, covering both service users and staff members. Here, she tells us why this training has been a major influence on her work in this area.
There are many things I took away from the training, but none more so than the comment 'there can be no health without mental health'. This fact has stayed with me since, and has made mental health and wellbeing a core element of my work. So many people think 'mental illness' when they hear the words 'mental health', so I have taken every opportunity to raise awareness of the whole range of mental health – mental wellbeing, mental health problems and mental illness – in training inputs, regular information in the staff news bulletin and staff induction information.
While social work staff were clear about their role in working with people with mental illness, over the past two to three years all the services provided by social work – criminal justice, children's services and community care – have come to realise their important role in promoting the health and mental wellbeing of all service users.
The most recent piece of work in terms of supporting staff has just been completed, A Health and Mental Wellbeing Policy for Staff Members.This policy was drawn together by a group of staff from across the whole department, and was also informed by individual staff members' examples of how their workplace dealt with their mental health issues. There were many good examples, but it was also clear that there is still considerable stigma attached to mental illness which needs to be tackled. The two planned training sessions, one to raise awareness for all staff members about health and mental wellbeing, and one for managers on their vital role in both supporting staff members and challenging stigma, will assist in this.
To find out more about Promoting Mental Health Improvement and other training, visit our Training and Learning section.
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