NDS are offering a number of Mental Health First Aid for the Disability Sector courses.

Facilitated by Angi at Blooming Minds.

The first of these will be held on the 27th and 28th of February 2012.

This course has been customised to meet the needs of those working in the disability sector. Participants will be equipped with the knowledge and skills to recognise and respond to developing and ongoing mental health issues in their clients, in themselves and in their colleagues.

Presenter: Angi Leighton, Blooming Minds

Date: 27th and 28th of February 2012

Time: 9am - 4:30pm

Venue: NDS WA Board Room. Unit 1/59 Walters Drive, Osborne Park (parking available at the old IKEA site)

Cost: $355 NDS members, $445 non-members (includes catering on both days and all materials).

NDS WA Professional Development

Post: PO Box 1428 Osborne Park 6916

Phone: 9208 9876

Fax: 9242 5044

Email: pd@nds.org.au

NDS are running a number of these courses throughout the year. These are listed on the calendar of events on their website www.nds.org.au

Will Your Career Bloom in 2012?

The start of a new year forces us to reflect on what we want to achieve and change in our lives, with the focus usually being on financial, health and relationship goals. Often our career continues on, refreshed by the Christmas break, but not making it onto the New Year Resolution list. Are you happy with the work you do? Are you fulfilled? Do you enjoy the challenges presented to you in your workplace and appreciate the life balance you have achieved between family and work? No? Sometimes we just go through the daily motions at work just wishing that something would change. But without some effort and thought, your career doesn't usually just change on its own- you have to take action to get the changes you want.

So if one of your goals for this year is to get more fulfillment out of your work, then consider these steps:

• Start to notice what it is about your current job that no longer invigorates you (have your tasks, hours, managers, home responsibilities changed?)
• Appraise yourself and your current skills, abilities, responsibilities, loves, interests and personality. These things all change and mature all over the years, affecting how you feel about work.
• Read the Employment section of the paper, observe jobs in the community, talk to people about their work and browse on SEEK. Look through the whole employment section and keep any jobs that would be your 'dream' job, or have elements of your dream job (perfect hours/pay/clients/company/tasks). Collect these up over a few weeks or months, creating a picture of the kinds of work that excites you. Don't limit yourself based on your previous training and experience...this is a time to dream!
• Find out about the realties of some of the jobs you are interested in. Do some online research to find out about the training, experience, skills and abilities required to do some of the jobs that appealed to you.
• Make a plan...

The most important step is to use all of this information to make a plan for your life. If you need more experience, skills or training...find a way to work towards it. You can usually start acting on your plan while you continue in your current role, invigorated because you have a new direction and a plan to get there. Start to work towards your dream and make a difference to your life.

headspace - Fremantle

Fremantle headspace provides free and confidential mental health and wellbeing support, information and services to young people aged 12 - 25 and their families. They offer a range of services such as a youth friendly GP as part of the GP4YP program, youth engagement supports, drug and alcohol withdrawal support, counselling, parent and family supports and linking young people in with other appropriate support services.

Young people might access Fremantle headspace for a whole range of reasons, with some including mental health issues, general physical health, sexual health, family and relationship issues, drugs and alcohol, education and training, sexuality issues and accommodation.

Young people can refer themselves and make an appointment simply by giving Fremantle headspace a call. Alternatively, they receive referrals from family and friends, teachers and GP's; and provided they receive consent from the young person an appointment will then be scheduled with one of their youth friendly workers.

Fremantle headspace is a consortium model which means they partner with a number of other support services to make referrals easier and limit the number of times a young person has to tell their story. The consortium is made up of the Fremantle GP Network, St John of God Drug and Alcohol Withdrawal Network (DAWN), Fremantle CAMHS, Youth Reach South, Quarry Sexual Health for Under 25's, City of Cockburn, City of Melville and the City of Fremantle.

As Australian research shows that 1 in 4 young people will have a mental illness in any given year their focus is on early interventions and prevention. Fremantle headspace seeks to offer young people a youth friendly and accessible service that responds to their needs in a respectful and non-judgmental way.

Also available through Fremantle headspace is eheadspace which is a confidential, free and secure space where a young person or their family can web chat, email or speak on the phone with a qualified youth mental health professional. eheadspace aims to offer flexible mental health support to young people 12 - 25 years of age and their families or friends. eheadspace is not a crisis service. 

Contact details for eheadspace are as follows: eheadspace.org.au from 1pm - 1am AEST or eheadspace telephone 1800 650 890 during the hours of 10pm - 1pm AEST.

Fremantle headspace is open from Monday to Friday 9am - 5pm and they're located at 235 High St, Fremantle.

PH: 08 9335 6333

Email: info@fremantleheadspace.com.au or visit the website at www.fremantleheadspace.com.au.

How much poison have you drunk this year?

"Holding a grudge is like drinking poison and expecting the other person to die." (author unknown)

I just love this quote! In the past I have been a bit inclined towards grudge holding - not always long term grudges, but certainly grudges of great emotional intensity! Over the last few years I have been liberated somewhat from this habit and have felt much better for it. However,  over the last 6 months we have been delivering a lot of our "Dealing with Difficult People" courses and I have been amazed by how often people get hooked into another's bad behaviour and hold grudges with the dedication that an Olympian would envy. So, before we get into the season of catching up with family and friends, the tensions this can sometimes cause, deciding who will and will not be invited, who to sit next to who etc etc, think about this:

Who are you holding a grudge against?

Who is being hurt (poisoned) by this grudge?

What can you do about it?

It can be useful to acknowledge that sometimes we feel hurt by others actions (whether intentional or not) and that we also sometimes create hurt. However, the dissection of a grudge is often like unravelling a game of Chinese whispers; trying to figure out what actually happened can be very difficult because we each remember events from our own perspective and through our own "filters'. So, instead of trying to prove who was right and who was wrong, it can be more liberating to think about:

How you may have contributed to th event?

Whether it is hurting you to hold the grudge?

Whether holding the grudge is ever going to change the other persons (past or future) behaviour?

We can only be responsible for our thoughts, our feelings and our own behavioural changes. To get freedom from a grudge doesn't have to depend on the other person apologising or making amends. We can get freedom from it within ourselves and through the energy we give it.

Think about what lesson you can take from the experience that lead you to holding the grudge, and decide to move on with this new knowledge, and wipe the slate clean with the grudgee. This doesn't mean you have to pretend that they never hurt you or that you allow them to walk all over you in the future. It means that you are acknowledging that you are not going to be stuck in the negative energy of the past and that you will move forward respecting the other person is creating their own path in life, just as you can create yours. You may decide that you need to maintain stronger boundaries or distance between yourself and this person, even that you may never wish to engage with them again. Depending on how they've hurt you, this may actually be quite a good idea. However, whether you see them again or not, the idea is that you will not attach the same emotional intensity to them or their actions. You will not allow them to continue hurting and affecting you through reliving events of the past. It may take time and practice to feel yourself letting go of your grudge, after all, you probably rehashed the reasons for the grudge over and over again and it can take a while to undo this intensity. However, if you don't want to be stuck drinking the poison, it may just be worth it.

What grudges can you shake off this year, to move into 2012 more peacefully?

Some ideas to let go of grudges that are hurting you are:

Write a letter to the grudgee about what and how they've hurt you and then burn or bury the letter, deciding for yourself that you are now going to let go in your own best interest.

Make some time to meet with your grudgee and talk calmly about why you are holding the grudge and that you want to let go of it (this will only work if you are able to manage your emotions in this meeting and accept that your perspective of events may be different to the other persons, and so you need to respect their perspective even if it contradicts your own).

Write yourself a list of all the lessons you can learn from the experience and put those lessons into practice.

Write yourself a list of the ways you and the grudgee are similar and increase your empathy for them.

Meditate on letting go of the negative energy that you are holding on to (do this every time you find yourself pondering your grudge).

Lastly, recognse that this is a process and give yourself some grace that it may take time and don't beat yourself up about the process!

I'd love to hear how you go with this.

Kind regards,

Tasha

Copyright Blooming Minds 2011. All rights reserved.

Blooming Minds Organisational Survey

Have you or someone you know experienced mental illness while you were an employee? Did this affect your work capacity? How well did your organisation respond to your needs? If you've never experienced mental illness yourself, we're keen to hear your opinions too!

Blooming Minds Institute of Mental Health and Wellbeing works in partnership with community groups as well as workplaces to develop programs to reduce the risk of psychological injury in the workplace and to increase community mental health literacy. Blooming Minds is hosting a Mental Health in the Workplace Symposium on February 14th, 2012 at the Perth Convention and Exhibition Centre, and are seeking participants for a brief survey of mental health in the workplace across varying types of organisations at all levels of responsibility and across several nations. Information collected in this anonymous, confidential survey will be presented at the symposium as well as at other venues, lectures and publications related to understanding workplace mental health issues, and on our website.

Participation in this survey is completely voluntary, and all information collected will be kept confidential. We thank you in advance for your participation in this survey, and invite you to send any queries you may have about this survey or our organisation to the lead investigator in this survey, Tasha Broomhall at tasha@bloomingminds.com.au

The link for the survey can be found at https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/Blooming_minds_at_work_2011.

Please copy and paste the link in your browser if clicking the link does not take you directly to the survey.

Please help us to reach as many people as possible so that we can get a comprehensive idea of opinions and what people are experiencing.

Kind regards,

Tasha Broomhall