25 Trained in Mental Health First Aid and Lay Counseling
Oluwaferanmi Adeyemo, Abuja.
No fewer than 25 young Nigerians have been trained in basic Mental health First Aid and Lay Counseling skills in Abuja, Nigeria’s capital, by YALI RLC Nigeria Alumni Chapter in collaboration with Ilera Health Initiative, an NGO, Lysi Regimen, a mind health centre in Nigeria and the Pan African Development Education and Advocacy Programme (PADEAP-London, UK).
According to Aisha Abdullahi Bubah, the YALI RLC Nigeria Alumni President, the vision of the 8-weeks training which spanned from November 1st to December 14th, 2019 is to create a society where mental health enthusiasts and community social workers will have basic mental health and lay counseling skills to give first-contact mental health assessments and psychosocial support to help seekers in their local community while making referrals in cases requiring more specialised interventions.
She said the prompt pre-mental health care is necessary to achieve a mentally healthy society in Nigeria. However, this service is suboptimal in Nigeria due to lack of adequate trained personnel.
According to Aisha, “Training of Mental Health First-aiders and Lay Counselors is a means of closing this gap of inadequate personnel. Nigeria with a population of over 180 million people has approximately 200 psychiatrists, meaning 1 psychiatrist to 1.8million Nigerians. Statistics has it that 3 out of 10 Nigerians suffer from one form of mental disorders.”
She added that this dearth of Mental health and lay counseling knowledge has led to an increase in depression, anxiety, posttraumatic stress disorder and suicide rate in Nigeria and a poor ranking of Nigeria’s Heath sector.
Mr. Yomi Oloko, a facilitator from PADEAP UK, engaged the participants on Introduction to Mental health.
Aisha Abdullahi Bubah, who is a Psychologist and Psychotherapist, took the participants through Lay counselling training and Psychological first aid.
Other components of the training includes Understanding depression and anxiety by Psychologist ThankGod, and Understanding substance misuse which was taken by Psychologist Maria Saliu.
Participants were also taken through Setting up and facilitating mental health support groups.
After the training, participants were tasked to test their skills by carrying out 3 month long post-training projects under the supervision of assigned mentors.
Participants of the training hailed the organisers, describing the training as timely while calling on government and mental health stakeholders at all levels to support making Mental Health First Aid and Lay Counseling education available for most Nigerians as there is no health without mental health.
