This course explores the psychological impact of the COVID-19 pandemic and what front line workers can do, to help people cope. It takes place over three weeks. The course covers:

• What psychological first aid is.
• How emergencies impact on mental health.
• The psychological first aid stages: Prepare, Look, Listen, Link
• Supporting yourself and your colleagues
• Example scenarios

The course was developed by Public Health England and is aimed at frontline workers and volunteers, who are dealing with the public during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Visit FutureLearn's website

This website brings together a wide range of free, online mental health and wellbeing courses. The courses, which have been developed by universities across the world, generally run for several sessions, over a number of weeks. They are aimed at a broad range of people including the general public, health and social care workers, teachers and academics.

The site includes the course COVID-19: Psycholigical First Aid. This was developed by Public Health England and is aimed at frontline workers.

This site offers free, online, life-skills courses. The courses, which are based on cognitive behavioural therapy, aim to help people manage issues such as stress, worry or low mood. Free booklets and a range of worksheets can also be downloaded from the site.

Visit LLTTF’s website

The MindEd website provides free e-learning resources on mental health and wellbeing. The e-learning is aimed at the general public, volunteers, professionals and students.

Families
The resources for families focus on children, young people and older people. The site aims to help people understand what problems can occur, what self-help approaches might work and what support is available. 

Volunteers, professionals and students
MindEd's e-learning is relevant across health, social care, education, criminal justice and community settings. It's aimed at anyone from beginner, to specialist. The modules cover the health of infants, children, teenagers and adults. 

The Wellbeing for Education Return programme
This programme is aimed at staff working in schools and colleges. The purpose of the training is to help staff support both young people and colleagues through the COVID-19 pandemic.

Public mental health
In May 2020 a public mental health e-learning session was launched. The session is aimed at people working in public health, primary care, secondary mental health, social care and commissioning. The module outlines the impact of mental health problems, mental wellbeing, and public health interventions.  

Visit MindEd's website

The Open University offers a number of free, online courses relating to mental health and wellbeing. These range from introductory to advanced and take between two and eighteen hours to complete. Some of the courses have a particular target audience, others would be relevant to a wide range of people. A number of the mental health and wellbeing courses with a self-help, or public health focus are listed below:

Challenging Ideas in Mental Health

Exercise and Mental Health 

Mindfulness in Mental Health and Prison Settings 

Panic Attacks, what they are and what to do about them 

Public Health and Mental Health Promotion 

Supporting Children and Young People’s Wellbeing

Work and Mental Health

Warrington CAMHS is running a number of free, online training sessions. The training is for professionals working directly with children and young people between the ages of 8 and 18, within Warrington.

Click the links below for more details:

How to book a place
If you are a teacher, or if you work in a school please ask your school’s office staff to book you a place.

If you are not a teacher, or school worker, you can book directly through Warrington Training Hub. If it’s your first time visiting the site, you’ll need to register before you can book on. Just go to the Public Health training pages, click the “sign up” link, fill in the form and submit.

It may take one or two working days before you receive confirmation that your registration is complete. If you’ve booked on to a training session through this system before then you’ll already be registered. Once you’ve logged into the site you’ll be able to book places on the training sessions.

If you have any queries please email publichealthtraining@warrington.gov.uk

The Social Isolation Step Up Module focuses on building people’s resilience following the COVID-19 lockdown. The training is aimed at everyone, including the general public. The module takes 5-10 minutes to complete and aims to help people:

• identify signs that isolation is affecting someone negatively
• provide suggestions to reduce stress and anxiety
• recognise when action is needed to keep someone safe
• put strategies in place to deal with the new normal

The Zero Suicide Alliance (ZSA) also offers two, free, suicide prevention modules, the ZSA Gateway Module (which takes 5-10 minutes to complete); and the ZSA Suicide Awareness Module (which takes 20 minutes). More details about these three training modules can be found on the ZSA’s website.

Mental health support and advice in Warrington
As the ZSA's training is national, it doesn’t cover details of Warrington’s mental health support services, but you can find information about how to access local support services by clicking one of the blue age related buttons above, then looking under the dark heading "information and support". 

Alternatively, click I need urgent help, for details of how to get support if someone can't cope and needs help right now.

The Zero Suicide Alliance (ZSA) offers two, free, online, suicide prevention training sessions. The training is aimed at everyone, including the general public. 

The Suicide Awareness Training covers the key issues, offers practical guidance, and takes about 20 minutes. The session aims to:

• help people identify when someone is displaying suicidal thoughts or behaviour
• build people's confidence to speak out in a supportive way
• empower people to signpost others to appropriate services or support

The Gateway Module is a very brief introduction to suicide awareness, which gives tips for approaching someone, you're concerned about. This module takes about 10 minutes to complete and is a shortened version of the 20 minute session.

Accessing the training 
More details about these training modules can be found on the ZSA’s website. The ZSA also offers the Step Up Social Isolation Module, which focuses on building people’s resilience following the COVID-19 lockdown.

The Zero Suicide Alliance is a collaborative of NHS Trusts, businesses and individuals committed to suicide prevention.

If you have any queries after you’ve completed this module, then please email publichealthtraining@warrington.gov.uk.

Mental health support and advice in Warrington
As the Zero Suicide Alliance's training is national, it doesn’t cover details of Warrington’s mental health support services, but you can find information about how to access local support services by clicking one of the blue, age-related buttons above, then looking under the dark heading "information and support". 

Alternatively, click I need urgent help, for details of how to get support if someone can't cope and needs help right now.

Free suicide prevention resources
This site has details of a wide range of free suicide prevention resources. These include:

• links to support services and self-care resources
• a local flowchart and infographics 
• the Zero Suicide Alliance's resource pages
• anti-stigma materials
• how to start a difficult conversation
• Keep safe plans
• suicide prevention resources
• suicide bereavement resources
• the Stay Alive app

"We Need to Talk About Suicide" is aimed at administrative and support staff, people working in public health or health promotion roles, and anyone who works with the public. This free, online session was developed by Public Health England, in collaboration with people who have attempted to take their own lives and those bereaved or affected by suicide.

"We Need to Talk About Suicide" aims to:

• reduce the stigma associated with suicide
• make people aware of possible signs of mental health problems
• increase people's confidence to approach someone they're concerned about; and to have a conversation about suicide 
• help people understand that by asking someone how they are, talking about suicide and listening, they can make a real difference 

The training takes between 60 and 90 minutes to complete.

Accessing the training
The ways you can access "We Need to Talk About Suicide", are outlined below:

• Open access: 
  The training is available to anyone through this link, however this version of the session won't save your progress or track your learning activity.
  
  
• Access via e-Learning for Healthcare (e-LfH) Hub:
  If you login your account on the e-LfH Hub, or if you register for an account, then a record of your learning will be saved. If you don’t have an account, then you can still complete the session, but no record will be saved.
  
  
• Access via ESR: If you work for an NHS Trust that uses ESR for e-learning, then you can access the session through the ESR NLMS portal. When you login to NLMS you'll need to enrol the session.

If you have any queries after you’ve completed this module, then please email publichealthtraining@warrington.gov.uk.

Mental health support and advice in Warrington
As this online session is national, it doesn’t cover details of Warrington’s mental health support services, but you can find information about how to access local support services by clicking one of the blue, age-related buttons above, then looking under the dark heading "information and support".

Alternatively, click I need urgent help, for details of how to get support if someone can't cope and needs help right now.

Free suicide prevention resources
This site has details of a wide range of free suicide prevention resources. These include:

• links to support services and self-care resources
• a local flowchart and infographics 
• the Zero Suicide Alliance's resource pages
• anti-stigma materials
• how to start a difficult conversation
• Keep safe plans
• suicide prevention resources
• suicide bereavement resources
• the Stay Alive app