Mental Health First Aid is not the answer to tackling mental illness, but it's a big part of it

When first developed in Australia in 2000, the premise of the MHFA model was simple – to see mental illness like any other illness and to provide an educational course which could skill people to assist those who are experiencing a mental health issue or crisis. MHFA England started in 2007 as a small programme within the Department of Health under the then-Labour government. Now with 17 years of global experience and evidence base as its foundation, and 10 years of implementation in England with 194,00 people trained, I would suggest to term it “the new big thing in mental health”, as Dr. Watts does, is inaccurate. MHFA is a global movement, the first of its kind to be translated across cultures and languages in 22 countries, including the education sector. The recently launched government-funded Youth MHFA in Schools programme builds on our work in schools which started seven years ago in 2010 – MHFA England has trained 25,000 school staff in more than 500 schools and colleges. Excerpt from The Independent, read the full article here.