Training
Mind Cymru is providing training across Wales to raise awareness of suicide. Our aim is to increase knowledge, skills and confidence, while challenging the stigma that can be a barrier to those in need finding help.
The Positive Choices suicide prevention training framework is a key strand of the Welsh Assembly Government's National Action Plan to Reduce Suicide and Self Harm. All programmes provide an empathic, person-centred approach based on trust and good communication.
At the heart of the project is an award-winning training programme that aims to improve the methods used by all health, social care and emergency services professionals to support people at risk of suicide.
We aim to train 13000 people in Applied Suicide Intervention Skills Training by 2014. This is an established, award-winning, evidence-based training model that has been continuously developed over 25 years and is used world-wide to provide suicide intervention training to professionals and community members alike.
ASIST equips front-line workers and individuals with the skills and confidence to intervene. This is not just aimed at health workers or professionals, but all those who have a role in helping others and are in a position to act as 'gatekeepers' to recognise those who need help to stay safe. The focus of the workshop is on immediate safety, not fixing problems or trying to deliver therapeutic interventions. The skills we teach can be mastered by anyone - ASIST is Suicide First Aid.
Today, training people in first aid and giving them CPR skills is a recognised need - we take it for granted. And yet statistically we are more likely to encounter someone with thoughts of suicide than someone having a heart attack.
Mind Cymru is working with Open Minds Consulting and Consultant Psychiatrist Alys Cole-King to develop Connecting with People, a series of training packages designed to complement ASIST and advance a community-based, gatekeeper led approach to suicide prevention. This training aims to enhance participants' ability to talk to someone who has suicidal thoughts and equip them with simple distress reducing techniques.
Connecting with People Suicide Awareness Training is a two-hour workshop designed to increase empathy and challenge stigma by helping participants develop their understanding of suicidal beahviour.
Connecting with People Suicide Response Training is a one day workshop designed for targeted sectors to increase understanding and skills in order allow them to contribute to a community-based suicide prevention approach.
All training provided by the Positive Choices Project is evaluated to ascertain its impact and effectiveness by Public Health Wales. This evaluation is conducted against all four levels of the Kirkpatrick model. Follow-up surveys will measure the impact on practice and behaviour.
