Making Every Contact Count for Mental Health Lunch and Learn

Mental health problems are incredibly common across the UK, with 1 in 4 of us experiencing one at some point in our lives. Yet seeking help for our mental health is far less common. Whether it’s shame, a lack of information, fear, or logistical obstacles, it is estimated that one fifth of adult population would delay seeking help for their mental health for at least 6 months. With mental health being a leading cause of disability in the UK, and the fact that people with mental health conditions, on average, experience poorer health and wellbeing outcomes, there is a clear need to break down these barriers to accessing support. There is, in other words, a need to ‘make every contact count for mental health’.

Commissioned by Health Education England in the North West of England, the Royal Society for Public Health (RSPH) designed and delivered the Making Every Contact Count (MECC) for Mental Health (MH) project, producing a training programme that upskilled just over 1,000 non-specialist mental health frontline staff in primary and community care settings across the North of England.

The independent evaluation of this work has demonstrated with statistical significance, that the training programme increased participants’ capability, opportunity, and motivation to have conversations with people about their mental health, and to refer people for further support. It also increased their expectations that they would do so in the future.

This Lunch and Learn session will provide an overview of the project model, the training programme, the independent evaluation, and lessons learned.

Agenda

1. Introduction to Making Every Contact Count for Mental Health (Clare Baguley, Commissioner, HEE)
2. Project model and outputs (Nelly Araujo, Project Manager, RSPH)
3. Tester of the Training Programme (Lead Training Developer, Dawn Mitchell, RSPH)
4. Evaluation results (Professors Lucie Byrne-Davis and Jo Hart, MISC)
5. Lessons learned (Sam King, Training Lead, RSPH)
6. Q&As

The session will take place on Wednesday 20th July between 12pm and 1pm on Microsoft Teams. Click here to join the meeting

Please note this session will be recorded and made available for viewing following the event.

For more information, please contact This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. or This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.