At London Studio Centre, we consider mental health and wellbeing during training to be critically important. Pastoral care, counselling and psychological support are a key element of our Student Welfare offering. Counselling is available to all students and drop-in sessions are offered for pastoral support.
To strengthen the psychological support available to students, we regularly offer Mental Health First Aid training to members of our teaching and admin staff. This helps ensure that frontline support is always available should a student experience poor mental health.
What is Mental Health First Aid?
Most people will be familiar with physical first aid, which involves giving initial help to a person who is injured if professional help isn’t required, or before professional help is accessed. Mental health first aid is very similar, but applied to someone who is experiencing poor mental health. Support could be as simple as checking if someone is okay and offering them a conversation, referring them to appropriate support networks, or assisting them in seeking professional help.
Mental Health First Aid training and consultancy is provided by MHFA England, who also offer membership and resources to individuals who participate in their courses.
Why are Mental Health First Aiders important to LSC?
As MHFA England state in their learning materials, there are many reasons why Mental Health First Aid is needed, including:
- Poor mental health is common
- There is stigma associated with poor mental health
- Many people are not well informed about mental health
- Professional support isn’t always available straight away
While we have robust counselling and pastoral care available at London Studio Centre, having trained Mental Health First Aiders (MHFAiders) means that support is always available should sudden events occur such as panic attacks. MHFAiders are also trained to recognise potential mental health struggles such as depression, anxiety, self-harm and more. This means they may be able to offer early support where appropriate or even guide a student to seek help when the student doesn’t yet recognise that they might need it.
Meet the latest MHFAiders at LSC
On 15th-16th July, six more LSC staff members attended the MHFA England Mental Health Firt Aid course under the tutelage of Lizzy Du Verney, LSC’s Head of Pastoral Care and Student Counsellor. These newcomers to the ranks fo MHFAiders are:
- Dr. Deveril, Head of Learning Support and Senior Lecturer
- Jim Dixon, Marketing Manager
- Oliver Holdsworth, Data & Compliance Manager
- Nikki Laurence, Head of Musical Theatre and Programme Leader for BA (Hons) Professional Performance (Top-Up)
- Miriam Signorello, Student Records Manager
- Sarah Tudor, Admissions Manager
They will be joining the 14 MHFAiders already in the LSC team.
From left: Miriam Signorello, Nikki Laurence, Sarah Tudor, Lizzy Du Verney, Jim Dixon, Oliver Holdsworth and Dr. Deveril
For further information on the Student Welfare offering at London Studio Centre and other aspects of life as an LSC Student, see the Student Life section of our website.