Video Transcription

Mental Health First Aid – Tim

I live here at a residential college at the University of Melbourne, and during my first year here, one of my friends unfortunately made multiple attempts on taking his own life. That was really quite confronting and sad. We’re all students who are living away from our normal support networks here at college, and we don’t have the normal people that we would rely on. After that struggle, I guess, was really where I got involved with Mental Health First Aid Australia in the training course, and all of those lessons that I learned there.

We’ve been able to establish a student pastoral care team, which is a new initiative that I helped establish last year within the college. By having this process and system in place, students are much more willing to come to us and talk to us about either themselves or their friends who are going through a difficult time. We give them the help that they need by linking them with the support services they require.

I found the mental health first aid training course really worthwhile and really useful because it taught a lot of vital and practical skills on how to deal with mental health problems and how to handle crises that may arise. It also taught me how to support someone while also looking after my own mental health. Taking that stigma away from mental health really puts power back to the individual, allowing them to help themselves and their friends in a proactive way.

So, I’d encourage anyone who really wants to give back to any person around them, whether it be a colleague at work, a family member, or a friend, to undertake the Mental Health First Aid training course because it’ll provide those skills to make a real meaningful impact in people’s lives.

I’m Tim, I’m a university student, and I am a mental health first aider.

Mental Health First Aid