Being Aware of Mental Health

We try to do our bit here at Volume 1, and our wonderful café manager Katie is continuing to develop our understanding of mental health issues by studying and completing a mental health first aid course. This helps to give you the tools to begin to understand mental health and the factors that can affect wellbeing, gain practical skills to spot the signs of mental health issues, develop your interpersonal skills such as non-judgemental listening, and gain the knowledge to be able to guide someone to further support.

Katie agreed to share a little about why she chose to take this course and how it may shape our workplace and community in the future. Over to Katie …


This month I will be completing a mental health first aid course to become Volume 1 Climbing’s first mental health first aider. Talking about mental health is something I am passionate about. This is not just because I think the more we all practice talking about our mental health the more it normalises the conversation, helping to stamp down the stigma, but also because I’ve learnt through the years how helpful it is for my own mental health to keep on talking about it, despite my natural inclinations not to! I’ve come to learn that for me, uncomfortable conversations are a small price to pay for the joys of living authentically, and the more I’ve practised it the easier it’s become.

I qualified as a counsellor in 2013, so in many ways I am used to supporting people through various difficulties and mental ill health. However, with our new business I wanted to ensure I was able to support our team and the wider community in the most helpful and appropriate way possible. In the workplace we are seeing each other’s ups and downs in the moment – rather than when we may come to sit in a counselling room, which often can be after a long time deliberating and possibly a long waiting list. This means we have an opportunity to act in real time to help each other, also to empower and provide the resources for someone to access the appropriate support where needed, hopefully before reaching crisis point. I hope and aim to feel confident helping someone through a crisis in a different capacity to being a counsellor.

I’m really looking forward to developing these new skills and learning how, as a team, we can foster each other’s positive wellbeing, at the same time as tackling the stigma surrounding mental ill health.