Making Every Contact Count in mental health

We hear from Lindsay Jayes, a midwifery student at the University of Cumbria, who is a member of the NHS England North West Student Council and who talks about her work around Making Every Contact Count in mental health.

My name is Lindsay Jayes. I am a midwifery student at the University of Cumbria and a member of the NHS England North West Student Council. It was through the Student Council that I was fortunate enough to be given the opportunity to become a trainer in Making Every Contact Count (MECC) for mental health for practice education facilitators and students. As mental health is a huge element of my training – not only within practice but also for myself as a health degree student – I immediately applied for this opportunity.

The training was delivered remotely over two days; I was initially worried about it being online as I prefer in person interaction. However, the training package was very interactive and gave way to some great discussions. The presentation by the lead trainer Christine Roberts, Senior Lecturer in Mental Health at Liverpool John Moores University, was insightful and thought provoking. It gave me a new appreciation for the importance of opening up those initial conversations around mental health and provided me with a whole new range of tools to help deal with my own mental health and wellbeing.

The support and encouragement throughout the training from the Royal Society of Public Health (RSPH) and NHS England was phenomenal. It was clear from day one that this project is a passion of all involved, and once I began the process of becoming a trainer myself, I too became a passionate advocate for the MECC for mental health project. I found myself becoming more confident in opening conversations with service users I cared for in practice, in addition to being more able to help my fellow cohort in dealing with the stressors of the degree and knowing where to signpost for further support and advice.

The university has also been supportive of my new role, encouraging me to hold a MECC for mental health workshop on campus. I am not a natural public speaker by any means, but once I realised the opportunity I had been given to enable dissemination of the MECC approach, there was no stopping me. The workshop was attended by 28 midwifery students, all of whom engaged well with the presentation. I felt privileged to be able to share with them how MECC works and how they can now take these new tools and utilise them in their own individual practice and in everyday interactions.

If the opportunity arises for you to become involved with MECC for mental health grab it with both hands. It really is an amazing approach to mental health, opening up those initial conversations, gaining a deeper understanding into language used, and developing your toolkit to provide self confidence in cascading this knowledge to many, many more people. I cannot thank NHS England North West and the RSPH enough for allowing me to further my understanding of mental health and the University of Cumbria for allowing me to share this knowledge with my fellow cohorts, so together let’s make every contact count. 

If you would like to find out more about the MECC for mental health for practice education facilitators pilot project, please click here.