Mental Health First Aiders – the pros and cons for organisations

The 6 November 2024 marks National Stress Awareness day – a day dedicated to raising awareness of the impact of stress upon individuals’ physical and mental well-being. As part of their management of workplace mental health many organisations have over recent years, introduced a relatively new concept – Mental Health First Aiders (MHFA’s). We consider here the pros and cons of such an approach, both in isolation and as part of a range of measures to promote mental wellbeing.

What is an MHFA?

Broadly speaking, an MHFA is a point of contact for employees if they are experiencing emotional distress or suffering in silence with mental health problems – commonly stress, anxiety and/or depression. Their responsibility is to provide a non-judgmental, confidential and understanding space for people to discuss their mental health.

Common sense dictates that MHFA’s should share the following attributes:-

• Calmness
• Empathy
• Good communication and active listening skills
• Awareness of the resources they can “signpost”, for example, professional counselling and Employee Assistance Programmes.

The benefits

The organisation, MHFA, was founded in 2007 and has worked for over 20,000 partner companies and organisations, both to raise the awareness of mental health and to tackle stigma. Its website points out the tangible financial benefits of tackling workplace mental health stating; “…for every £1 spent by employers on mental health interventions, employers could get back £5.30 in reduced absenteeism, presenteeism and staff turnover…”.

The Centre for Mental Health also sets out the financial benefits to an organisation, claiming that improving mental health could reduce employers’ losses attributed to mental illness by 30% - saving £8 billion a year.

Training MHFA’s should improve the knowledge of First Aiders on mental health issues and, if appropriately signposted to the workforce, lead to a growing awareness of mental health issues amongst the workforce at the same time as reducing the associated stigma which often surrounds mental illness.

The risks

If MHFA’s are either insufficiently trained or lack the core attributes to be effective (see earlier), the risk is that an organisation’s management of mental health issues is ineffective.

Karl Bennett, writing for HR Magazine (23 May 2024 and 2 June 2024), conducted a small scale independent and autonomous study which revealed that 35% of First Aiders surveyed said the issues they had encountered had exceeded the knowledge they had received from MHFA training.

Mr Bennett stated “…this is a sensitive area full of risks of danger, potentially placing an MHFA in a difficult position to provide support that they are not trained to provide which could trigger psychological distress of their own…”.

Additionally, if introduced in isolation without a broader overall strategy, this may be to the detriment of other key areas of focus or importance – prevention and treatment.

Evidence on the effectiveness of MHFA’s

In 2018, the Health and Safety Executive (HSE), looked at the effectiveness of MHFA training in the workplace, concluding; “…a number of knowledge gaps have been identified in this evidence review. It is not (our underlining), possible to state that MHFA training is effective in a workplace setting…”. The HSE pointed out a dearth of occupationally based studies with very limited evidence.

Five years later in 2023, the HSE carried out a literature review which reached conclusions consistent with that in 2018. They did however find some evidence that training increases both a trainee’s knowledge and understanding and this promoted a broader awareness of mental health issues. The HSE pointedly remarked that nobody yet had measured whether the introduction of MHFA’s had improved the organisational management of workplace mental health.

Commentary

The introduction of MHFAs’ ought to be beneficial for any organisation but it is key to ensure that they form just one part of the overall management of workplace mental health. First Aiders need to be equipped by means of training and support - whether through counselling or wider Employee Assistance Programmes to carry out the role effectively and without risk of psychological detriment of their own.

The empirical evidence as to the effectiveness of Mental Health First Aiders is currently very limited – it is hoped that this lacuna will be filled very soon.