Wellbeing First Aid

If you’ve ever found yourself wondering…

💭 “What do I even say when someone I care about is struggling?”
💭 “What if I get it wrong? I don’t want to make it worse”

…you’re not alone. These are some of the most common things I hear from people attending Mental Health First Aid training.

Book your place on an online MHFA England certified course:

This is a two day training course that could genuinely change how you see, understand and respond to mental health, inside and outside of the workplace 💚

In a small, supportive group, you’ll explore how to:

✔ Notice when someone might be experiencing poor mental health
✔ Offer support with empathy and confidence
✔ Look after your own wellbeing while supporting others

The sessions are live, online and interactive, with space for real conversation, reflection and connection.

Upcoming Dates:

19 & 20 November | 9am–5:15pm

2 & 3 December | 9am–5:15pm

6 & 7 January | 9am–5:15pm

11 & 12 February | 9am–5:15pm

💌 To find out more or reserve your place go to https://www.wellbeingfirstaid.co.uk/courses, message or email me at [email protected]

Every conversation matters and learning how to have them can make all the difference 💚

I get asked this so often, it was about time I wrote it down 💚

And I know people say that kind of thing just to tee up a post... but this is genuinely one of the most common questions I get.

So I’ve written my answers down as a little blog. It’s basically a few insider tips from a counsellor on:

10 WAYS TO FIND FREE OR CHEAP THERAPY IN THE UK
https://www.wellbeingfirstaid.co.uk/post/10-ways-to-find-free-or-cheap-therapy-in-the-uk

And if there’s a service you’ve used or tips I’ve missed out, feel free to pop it in the comments so other people can find out about them too.

Please share this with anyone you think might need it 💚

10 Ways to Find Free or Cheap Therapy in the UK Because when you have the specific words to Google, a whole new world of services can open up.

Quick one, I've got two MHFA courses open in August and there’s still a couple of spaces available. 💚

This is more than just a certificate. It’s two powerful days of learning, connection and practical tools to help you:

✔ Notice the signs when someone might be struggling

✔ Feel confident offering support without needing all the answers

✔ Look after your own wellbeing while caring for others

You’ll join a warm and supportive group, learn from real-world examples, and finish feeling ready to have conversations that matter - in your workplace, your community, or your everyday life.

📍 Live online

🎓 Fully certified MHFA England course

📅 Choose your dates:

→ 13 & 14 August | 9am–5:15pm

🔗 Book here: https://mhfaengland.org/course-booking-form/?id=b88eba43-4c50-f011-877b-000d3ab9ed4e

→ 19 & 20 August | 9am–5:15pm

🔗 Book here: https://mhfaengland.org/course-booking-form/?id=b78829bf-4c50-f011-877b-6045bddf0bb9

Right. It’s official. My counselling services launch today and I can now declare that my books are officially……..🥁..……

OPEN 😄🥳

📇 BACP profile: https://www.bacp.co.uk/profile/6c412d98-9965-e811-8108-3863bb351d40

You can now book online counselling sessions with me from wherever you are in the UK. I'm based in St Albans, but if you’ve got WiFi and a sofa, we’re good 👍

There are 8 weekly spaces available for new clients on Mondays and Fridays. You’re welcome to book a free 20‑minute intro call — it’s just a quick Zoom to see if we’re a good fit. No pressure to book afterwards

✨ This is person-centred counselling. So there’s no advice. No clipboard. No “fixing”. Just a warm, boundaried space to talk, reflect, and make sense of things together

But it’s not your usual online counselling, I am offering online counselling that’s flexible and ADHD-aware

🔹 I’m ADHD‑diagnosed myself, so I have a special interest in working with people navigating ADHD or AuDHD (diagnosed, self-identified, or somewhere in between)�🔹 All new clients get 2 Amnesty Tokens 🪙 🪙 use them anytime you like to cancel or reschedule at short notice, for no reason, with no cancellation fee & no guilt.�🔹 If forms feel impossible, I’ll fill them out for you.
🔹 You won’t get a guilt trip for being late.
🔹 Appointments come with SMS and calendar reminders, because brains do what they do.�🔹 If ADHD/AuDHD is part of your world, sessions are 60 minutes, not the usual 50 minutes (no extra cost)

Sessions are open-ended — so you can come for as long as it feels helpful.

And while I’ve only just officially qualified, I have already completed over 450 hours of counselling (which is the minimum usually needed for professional accreditation). So I’m new to the official title, but not the work

If you know someone who deserves a counselling space that’s flexible and genuinely ADHD-aware SHARE THIS post. It might help someone take that first step 💚

Since last December, I’ve been working alongside a long-standing, all-male community in London, helping them weave mental health support into the day-to-day life of their organisation

They wanted to create a space where everyone felt safe enough to talk to each other about their mental health—so we worked together to build an organisation-wide initiative. With full support from leadership, we shaped a year-long strategy. I used my background in marketing to develop the comms plan, write launch messaging and video scripts, and support the team on social and internal comms.

Since then, I’ve:

✔️ Trained over 70 Mental Health First Aiders
✔️ Helped build a network of 600+ Wellbeing Ambassadors
✔️ Delivered a webinar attended by 400+ members
✔️ Used survey insights to shape future talks, events and support

This is a community made up largely of older men, a group we know is statistically more at risk of su***de. And thankfully this initiative was massively oversubscribed, with almost three times as many people interested as there were spaces.

And while every course matters, whether it’s part of a bigger picture or a one-off, I’ve seen how powerful it can be when it’s part of a joined-up, long-term approach. This is where MHFA training really comes into its own. When it’s supported from the top, shaped by real insight, and led by people who care.

Huge thanks to for co-delivering the training and bringing about so many power moments. I couldn’t have done this without you!

And just to say it out loud… I’ve got space for one more client this year. If you’re looking to build something like this in your own community or organisation, I’d love to hear from you 💚

In the middle of a tough moment, the right words can be a lifeline 💚

They don’t need to be perfect, just kind and grounded enough help someone feel safe, but knowing what to say, and how to say it, doesn’t always come naturally.

That’s what you’ll learn on Mental Health First Aid training - it’s two days of calm, inclusive, evidence-based learning where we explore how to:

✔️ Recognise signs of poor mental health
✔️ Have supportive, person-centred conversations
✔️ Signpost someone to the right kind of help
✔️ Look after your own wellbeing too

My next online course is this July:

🗓 Thursday 17th & Friday 18th | 9am–5pm

📍Live on Zoom

✅ MHFAider® certificate + 3 years of ongoing support

You’ll leave with more than just a certificate - you’ll also feel equipped to show up for the people around you, when it really matters 💚

🔗 Book your place here: https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/mental-health-first-aid-mhfaider-online-course-registration-1367253013569?

MENTAL HEALTH FIRST AID (MHFAider®) ONLINE COURSE Join a "life-changing, life-saving" mental health training course online, get certified in just 2 sessions. Learn to support your loved ones

You could help change 12 young people’s lives if you fill out this quick form!

Action4Youth is in the running to win a £5,000 Award, that’s enough money to run an entire 12-week Breakout Programme for 12 young people on the verge of being excluded from school.

is amazing! It’s a proper intervention for young people who are at serious risk of being sucked into violence and knife crime, or being exploited by people a few years older than them.

For the past 3 and a half years, I’ve been sitting with them in classrooms, hearing their stories and talking to them about mental health as part of my work for Action4Youth. Most of the teenagers I meet through this programme have already had experiences that most adults never have to go through.

As well as my session on mental health, they:

🧭 Crawl through caves
🧭 Paddleboard across lakes
🧭 Go sailing
🧭 Hear from ex-offenders
🧭 Learn street first aid
🧭 Talk about drugs
🧭 Get 1:1 mentoring

Most importantly, they’re given a chance to feel seen and supported, and sometimes, that’s the first time they’ve ever felt like that.

💚 You can help Action4Youth fund a whole Breakout programme for 12 young people, just by filling out this quick form - I just did it in about 10 seconds!

Here’s the link to nominate Action4Youth: https://youth.movementforgood.com/ - PLEASE SHARE!

It really does take a village 💚

I forgot to bring my sunglasses… but this is actually kind of what their faces look like when I tell them I once jumped out of a 3rd floor window and broke my back 😅

My sessions involve real chats about mental health, coping strategies (or lack of them), and how the choices we make when we’re overwhelmed can shape our lives

Really grateful to have spent time with the brilliant students and staff at Unity College this week 💚

Thank you for having me as part of again

Because I work in mental health, does every single one of my social media posts need to come with a trigger warning?

Lately I’ve been wondering about it… as someone who works in this space every day, do I really need to include one?

Honestly, if I added a trigger warning every time I talked about something potentially triggering, I think I’d have to start EVERY post with:

“TW: Just me existing” 😂

The question’s been going around in my head since I listened to a podcast episode of Begin Again with Davina McCall and Deborah Frances-White (from The Guilty Feminist).

They touched on the research around trigger warnings, and how some studies show that people might actually benefit from NOT having them

🤯 I had to rewind that bit. Then I went looking for the research and came across this article: 👉 https://www.bps.org.uk/research-digest/do-trigger-warnings-work-intended

The British Psychological Society reviewed a bunch of studies and found that trigger warnings don’t reliably reduce distress and in some cases, might even increase engagement with difficult content.

So now I’m curious, and I’d genuinely love to hear your thoughts on this. As someone who works in mental health, should I always include trigger warnings when I’m posting on social media?

✅ Yes, always
🤔 Depends
❌ No, not needed

Let me know what you think and why in the comments! 👇

There’s no way 26-year-old me would’ve believed this. Back then, I was working full-time in marketing and going to uni in the evenings while studying for a marketing diploma at King's College London.

I thought if I studied marketing properly, and learned from the experts then maybe I’d finally feel like I deserved to be in the room…but it didn’t quite work like that.

The diploma did eventually help me land a job at Sky , but I still remember how out of place I felt there - even with 10 years' experience and a professional diploma under my belt - so many of my colleagues had degrees from top universities and everyone seemed so smart and so confident and I? I felt like an outsider.

Fast forward 15 years (and a career change…and a lot of therapy 😂), I found myself back at King's College London last week, but this time, I wasn’t a student and I didn’t feel out of place - I was standing at the front of the classroom co-delivering a course, and it really felt like a little full-circle moment 💚

I’m not quite a lecturer (yet!), but I did feel like I belonged in that room this time and that was big.

So, if you’ve ever felt like you don’t belong in the room you’re in, or that you’re not ‘qualified enough’ to be doing the thing you’re doing…the moral of the story is:

All you need is 15 years, a career change, and a ton of therapy and you’ll be totally fine. 😂 (Ok… maybe not totally fine.)

I still experience self-doubt and imposter syndrome, but the biggest shift didn’t come from the qualifications or the job titles, or the experience.

It came from doing the inner work, from learning to sit in the discomfort and still show up anyway. From finding new ways to talk to myself and from learning that belonging doesn’t always come from outside of you - sometimes it comes from growth on the inside.

Huge thank you to Rachel, Head of Entrepreneurial Skills at King's for inviting me it was such a joy to train alongside you and to our brilliant new cohort of MHFAiders, thank you for your curiosity, and compassion. You’re going to be amazing 💚

Highly recommend this training and this wonderful trainer 🙌

ASIST - Applied Su***de Intervention Skills Training for all

Builds knowledge, Confidence and Excellent Support Skills

Join us for our next workshop OR have an in-house workshop for your team 💚

www.upliftedwellbeing.co.uk
***de

There’s research showing that men who play golf tend to have better mental wellbeing... and honestly it makes sense. A few hours out in nature, proper chats, time away from screens and a chance to properly clear your head 💁‍♀️

Which is why I absolutely love the idea of corporate golf days. They’re really valuable to support your clients’ and your team’s mental health and such a simple way of strengthening relationships AND wellbeing at the same time. A proper win-win for companies 🏌🏻‍♂️💚

So if you’re organising a team day or client event this summer and want to do something that’s genuinely good for people while keeping your brand front of mind (long after the last putt 😉) I want you to see this brilliant little collection of golf merch that my bestie and her lovely team at Hype Branding Ltd put together this year. High-quality merch that you can have professionally branded to make your whole event really memorable. They have low minimum order volumes, quick lead times and it’s the type of merch that actually gets used!

Plus, I know I’m a bit biased, but the lady who runs the place is one of the loveliest people you’ll ever work with in your entire career! ☺️🥰

Golf isn’t just good for networking. It’s connection. And connection is good for our mental health 💚