MHFA Parent Testimonials

We take the mental health of our students incredibly seriously. As part of this, our Director of Student Welfare, Mr Shales, offers official Mental Health First Aid England Training to all members of our community, and we have extended the training offer to parents and guardians.

Here is just some of the feedback we received from the last cohort that completed the course.

“I felt the content was excellent and appropriate and delivered faultlessly by Mr Shales. I would highly
recommend this course.”

“I found the format a good mix of activity, information and instruction.”

“Mr Shales delivered this course, which covered some pretty hard hitting scenarios, in a very professional
way, taking time to answer all questions and considering our mental health throughout. The workbook was very
helpful and the opportunities to access further information through the online manual and App will be invaluable.
Thank you for this opportunity.”

“Thank you for Mr Shales for providing the opportunity for parents to do this course. It was very interesting and I’m sure it
will benefit my children and the other young people I work with. Having previously learnt a little about anxiety, it
might have been useful for the course to explicitly teach some techniques to help calm young people when they
are having an anxiety attack such as structured breathing or grounding techniques. This was shown in a video and
briefly discussed but I have found it to be a very useful tool and think others would benefit from it being a more
formal part of the course.”

“This course really helps build the confidence to approach and talk to any young person, or indeed adult, who is
struggling with mental health issues. I liked the fact it is very self-reflective as well – to think about the language we
use and how we are perceived by young people. It is also great to be able to access lots of support and further
information via your website going forward. Special thanks to our trainer Mr Shales who was unwaveringly
positive, knowledgeable, and enthusiastic, even through the tougher parts of the course.”

“Very good training and great insights into how to approach young people who may be going through poor mental
health. I liked that I learnt a lot about the type of questions I can ask and the support services that I can refer young
people to. I think more adults should take this course so more young people can have access to some form of
support and not feel alone.”

“Wasn’t as traumatic as I expected it to be. I thought the videos were excellent offering sample scenarios as you
could have in a training setting. Mr Shales was excellent – great to hear some of his real life experience. Feel
very lucky we had this opportunity to learn more, thank you Halliford School.”