NI training opportunities in emotional wellbeing and suicide prevention

Northern Ireland’s Public Health Agency (PHA) in partnership with the Western Health and Social Care Trust is encouraging people to take up opportunities for training in emotional wellbeing and suicide prevention that are currently available in the Western Trust area.
 
Brendan Bonner, PHA Head of Health and Social Wellbeing Improvement in the Western area, said: “Over the past five years almost 20,000 people in the Western Trust area have taken part in mental health training that addresses issues from building emotional resilience through to direct suicide intervention programmes.

“Almost 6,000 people have completed mental health and suicide awareness training through the Western Trust to statutory, community and voluntary agencies. This includes 840 who have completed the Applied Suicide Intervention Skills Training (ASIST) and over 1,300 the suicide awareness programme SafeTalk.

“A lot of the community-based training has been undertaken directly with the community and voluntary sector through collaboration with the community-based initiative CLEAR and other partnerships have included the Western Trust, schools, workplaces and sporting organisations.

“A further 14,000 people have participated in a variety of programmes such as Mental Health First Aid, Impact of Alcohol on Self-Harm and Crisis Intervention training which have been facilitated by CLEAR and the Western Trust.

“We are encouraged that demand for the participation on the courses remains high and many of the courses are already fully booked. We would however encourage more people to consider registering for the programmes such as Mental Health First Aid, Safe Talk, Motivational Intervention and the Impact of Alcohol on Self-Harm.”

Waiting lists are currently been drawn up for future courses and the registered demand will assist the PHA, Western Trust and CLEAR to determine where future courses should be delivered.

To register an interest in forthcoming courses, individuals can contact the Western Trust’s Health Improvement Department on 028 7186 5127, by email at [email protected]. Alternatively, contact the CLEAR project on 028 7138 3386 or by email at [email protected].

Details of the Western Trust’s training programmes can be accessed via their website here: www.westerntrust.hscni.net or their training brohure here: www.westerntrust.hscni.net/pdf/HI_Training_brochure_April-Sep15.pdf.