NINE people have graduated from a course that means mental health issues can be both better understood and better treated.
Dr Rod Waddington, who lives in Dukinfield, has delivered his latest Connect 5 course – a training programme designed to increase the confidence and skills of front line staff.
And he feels it is making Tameside better prepared to both confront and deal with issues surrounding mental health.
He said: “It’s basically asking the question, ‘How do you have a conversation around mental health?’
“So often, when people hear about issues like that, be it something like depression or anxiety, they shut up.
“If you’re sitting on the bus and someone starts to cry, do you look at them and say, ’Oh well, that’s it,’ or do you say, ‘Is there something I can assist you with?’
“How do you initiate and have that conversation? Once it’s initiated, how do you continue it?
“When someone says to you, ‘I’ve had enough of life, I want to end it,’ What do you do then? What’s the next questions?
“This gives people three things – a theoretical background, a way of utilising the skills and knowledge, and the confidence to do it.
“The problem is in most cases people sit with knowledge and skills but they don’t have the confidence to put it into practice.
“That’s what we’re aiming to do.”
Dr Rod already has four people going through the next course, based at the community room at Morrisons supermarket in Dukinfield.
Each person takes part in three three-and-a-half hour long sessions on Thursdays to complete their training.
However, he will start a similar scheme in Stalybridge and is hoping to introduce the YC5 scheme to Tameside, which encourages that conversation between young people and parents.
And he believes doing it helps the people he teaches, as well as those they then have contact with.
He added: “What we’ve found is that people who’ve attended actually have their own issues they’re dealing with.
“I’ve had so many people say, ‘Thank you, you’ve made a change in my life by just being here on the course.
“’I did something for myself while I was here.’”