It is taken for granted and legally enforced that there are first aiders in every work group. Usually, this only concerns physical health. At the same time, it has been proven that the prevalence of mental stress is particularly high among members of research institutions. For example, doctoral students report depressive symptoms twice as often as the general population.
The mental health of its members is important to the Department of Chemistry. Represented by the equal opportunities team, it therefore ran a training course in which people were trained as first aiders for people in mental crises. The aim was for them to strengthen their resources for dealing with their own mental health and to be able to act as a support for other members of the department in their environment.
We cooperated with MHFA Ersthelfer for the training. The organisation sent a course instructor who spent two full days at the chemistry department to teach the five building blocks of mental health first aid and work with participants on how to apply them.