Your Mental Health Training Questions Answered

So my name is Paula Power and I run a business called My White Dog which is all around positive interventions for mental health. I’ve been running the business now since 2018.

I worked in education for quite a few years and I worked with young people doing outdoor development training in wild country in Africa and Asia and mentoring.

The mental health first aid came about from my own personal experience of having a sibling who experienced challenges when they were growing up and none of us as a family really understood in the 80s and 90s about how to support someone with mental health challenges.

It was very much a sort of language around “just get on with it” and “if you keep crying, I will give you something to cry about” type of dismissive and judgmental language.

It was quite stigmatising, but we didn’t understand it so when I saw mental health first aid I thought that’s really interesting to gain a new perspective on awareness around mental health.

So I decided to do the training which was in 2018 and started my business having now qualified as a registered trainer, I’ve now trained over a thousand people in business, education to improve awareness around mental health in workplaces, communities and support for families.

People who engage with this learning are sometimes in a similar position to me, but other organisations want to improve the engagement with employees and to reduce absenteeism and presenteeism in the workplace.

Delegates sometimes come away with ‘light bulb moments’ that help their own personal development and mental health.

Recognising that stigma is impactful, and historically we have this relationship with mental health being perceived as a negative conversation, when you think about the film Psycho for example that people would automatically associate with somebody that is going to be a harm to other people but generally people are more harm to themselves, but there is a certain amount of fear around this.  I think it’s about recognising that having awareness of mental health forms part of our overall health, including our physical, emotional, and mental health it’s interlinked and it can impact us how we think, feel and behave.

Now to be able to have conversations around mental health having that awareness and not being afraid to have those conversations and recognise that we can stop the stigma and discrimination creating more of an equal and culturally a kinder space.   We have a responsibility to be mindful of this.  I think as well this can come from things being emotional aware, by understanding how you think, feel and behave is a really good starting point.

Listen to Paula Power explain how can we raise awareness, stigma, and mental health and physical health

Listen to Paula explain what emotional awareness is.

Paula explains what help My White Dog can provide here…