Mental Health: Strategies for Resilience

Mental Health First Aid (MHFA) training is a 12 hour course that was developed in 2001 for health care workers to better support clinical patients in mental health crisis. Evaluations of the training indicate that individuals who take this training improve knowledge of mental health disorders (e.g., psychotic disorders) and are better able to provide triaged mental health care. However, the program has limited use as it was developed for health care providers and focuses on extreme events of crisis. This post doctoral fellowship will revamp the MHFA based on current resilience research for university students on university campuses and offer the course through the Canadian Mental Health Association. The new focus will shift the emphasis of mental health training modules from a recovery model that is reactive and an approach that is didactic to a resilience model that is proactive and an approach that promotes interactive learning.

Faculty Supervisor:

Susan Hutchinson

Student:

Lara Fenton

Partner:

Canadian Mental Health Association

Discipline:

Human physical performance and recreation

Sector:

Life sciences

University:

Dalhousie University