Mental health training for your church 

Encourage Mental Health exists to enable churches to welcome, support and disciple people with poor mental health by providing training to increase awareness of the issues and a framework for the support of those in need.

We developed this training in response to churches asking for Mental Health First Aid training. Although we think there is a lot of benefit to those courses they are written for workplaces and schools, not churches and Christian communities.  

Church at it's best operates as a family of believers, so the support and understanding we can provide one another is so much more than a workplace could provide. We are not scared to get involved in the mess of daily lives, cooking, cleaning, looking after each others children and being there at the difficult times. Church can be great.

But we also recognise that Church can come with additional barriers for those experiencing poor mental health.  Misunderstandings about mental health and unhelpful beliefs can prevent people from recognising the signs of poor mental health and reaching out to ask for the help they need. 

We believe that with the right support everyone at church can be part of a body of believers who look out for each other and encourage each other to keep going through the hard times so that we all may be built up in our faith.

2 Corinthians 1:3-4 

Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of compassion and the God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our troubles, so that we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves receive from God.