Youth Mental Health First Aid

Yesterday I completed the Youth Mental Health First Aid course offered through SHINE SA. Afterwards, I also completed the online accreditation test and got my accreditation certificate.

I wanted to write a quick reflection on it, as I left it inspired in a number of key ways:

• The use of language by the instructor Zac impressed me so much, and inspired me to use more inclusive and less judgemental language. This is a point I would like to revisit periodically because I think it is a really powerful thing we (as humans) can do, with relatively little effort, and it can have a huge positive impact on the people around us.
• One conversation with Zac stuck with me, about working with aboriginal and torrens strait islanders. He mentioned an experience he had where he had been booked for basically the entire day (he was working as a social worker), and so we mentioned to the person he was talking with that he would only have a couple of hours to sit and chat, and that then he would have to move on. The aboriginal person he was speaking too told him “Well, you might as well leave now then”. Zac explained that in their culture, if you are going to sit down and talk you have to be willing to stay as long as it will take. If you set a time at which you need to leave, they may simply not engage with me, having gotten the impression you are not attributing the importance and value they deserve. Other teachers with teaching experience in the APY lands reiteraterd this by explaining that the aboriginal perspective of time can be quite different, and that people coming from “white culture” will often have to adapt to go slower, be more willing to take time to do things, and be less stressed about sticking to schedules and such. I though this was a useful and practical peice of insight that might come in handy, so I wanted to record it here. One last (important) note: aboriginal culture is far from homogenous, this is intended to raise awareness of possible differences in culture, not to claim that all aboriginal cultures are like this. I later attended an Aboriginal Culture lecture in which the speaker, (I’ve gotta find this guys name to look up his stuff it was really good), who strongly pushed this point: Aboriginal culture is not a single entity, but rather there are many, many, aboriginal cultures.

Also, one of the other people taking the course there was a parent, trying to gain some insight into how to deal with mental health and such, and it was really helpful to chat with her as well to gain some insight into the parents perspective on many of the issues discussed.