Mental Health First Aid: Your questions answered

Mental Health First Aiders (MHFA) are workplace first-responders. Colleagues taking on this responsibility play a crucial role in helping colleagues with mental health issues to access support. With so much political backlash around mental health, we believe it’s time to take a fresh look at mental health first aid in the workplace. Is it a woman’s job? How do you promote it, recruit skilled people and measure their success? In this blog we’ll answer all these questions and more based on our own client experiences.

The growing need for mental health support

New 2025 research by Mental Health First Aid England (MHFAE) found that only 17% of employees feel motivated to go to work each day. The data highlights the daily struggle that many employees face, with 1 in 10 feeling uninspired by their job and 23% unable to summon up enthusiasm for their work. Worryingly, only 4% of junior managers say they are bursting with energy at work each day. As MHFAE states in their report, “If managers feel undervalued, what hope is there for their teams?”.

The findings are unsurprising given the external challenges we have faced and continue to experience. Political and economic instability, the cost-of-living pressures and pandemic isolation, and new working arrangements have all had a major effect on mental health. At the same time people are fighting against toxic workplaces, increasing workloads and legislatory pressures, alongside managing life events and personal challenges. A dangerous combination of social, physical and financial factors causes stress, anxiety and trauma that presents in the workplace as declining mental wellbeing and rising absence.

On a brighter note, mental wellbeing at work contributes to a healthy workplace culture where employees feel psychologically safe and able to be at their best each day. Normalising mental health discussions by training up MHFAs goes some way towards addressing the workplace wellbeing challenge and ensuring your employees feel fully supported.   

What does a Mental Health First Aider do?

A trained MHFA should be able to identify signs that may indicate mental health challenges and signpost support to colleagues that need it. It works because colleagues know one another best and often recognise the early signs that someone is struggling. MHFA are most successful when working alongside leaders who are also trained to look out for their team’s wellbeing. They do not absolve a manager of their responsibility for wellbeing support.  

If your organisation is planning to appoint Mental Health First Aiders, a simple first step should be to define responsibilities through a templated role profile. But perhaps the question you should be asking is ‘what do your people want from their MHFA?’. It is down to your organisation to create an MHFA role that both your people and business need.

If you would like advice on implementing a wellbeing strategy in your organisation, please get in touch. 

Promoting the MHFA role to employees

Emphasising the value and importance of the MHFA role is the first step to recruiting colleagues into the position. It helps if senior leaders are already on board and are able to communicate the benefits of MHFA with clarity and reason. Once employees fully understand the role, they may put themselves forward for various reasons: a desire to help others, through personal experience of mental health issues, or through their involvement with related groups or committees.

Recruiting the required skills

The best place to start with recruitment is by analysing employee data. The current structure and makeup of your workforce will inform the age, gender, ethnicity, skills and number of people required. It’s important that your MHFAs reflect the wider organisation to be approachable and useful to all.

Contrary to popular belief, the role of the MHFA is not ‘a woman’s role’. You need to be observant, empathetic, be a strong listener and communicator, and have a desire to care for, and support, others. Anyone of any gender may exhibit these qualities, which should be top of the list when selecting people for training. You might also choose additional skills and qualities based on organisational needs.        

Where to draw the line of responsibility

When selecting and training MHFAs you must be clear about what you are asking them to do and set boundaries on where the role starts and ends. Will you expect them to provide low level reactive support, or take a more proactive involved role in company wellbeing initiatives? In most cases the role is to signpost relevant support and champion a supportive culture, not to spend hours counselling colleagues - this is the job of a qualified professional.

When it comes to providing mental health support, training is a non-negotiable. No matter how strong a person’s empathy, understanding and awareness of mental health issues, they need to be equipped to fulfil their role and meet company and colleague expectations.    

Another common client question is how often do you change your MHFAs? In reality your team should change alongside the needs of your organisation. It’s important to review and analyse workforce data to understand if these are being met. For example, if absence due to stress is on the rise, would it be useful to recruit colleagues with personal experience of overcoming stress who could help others at an early stage? 

Ask us about recruiting, promoting and reviewing the role of a MHFA in your organisation. Call 0161 941 2426 or email us.

Measuring the success of a Mental Health First Aid programme

In 2018, Mental Health First Aid England carried out a research study to analyse the impact of MHFAs in the workplace. A key finding was that people believed MHFAs were helping to increase support and encouraging people to seek out help, improving knowledge, attitudes, skills and improving company culture.

In our experience, asking for colleague feedback is the best way to evaluate success. Ask individuals who have accessed support to find out how useful it has been. Speak to those who haven’t used the service to tell you about employee perceptions. A formal review of your MHFAs’ performance will indicate individual success. Mental health related sickness and absence rates are another good indicator of progress. You should then use all the data you have collected to further promote, improve and enhance the role.

MHFA as part of a supportive wellbeing culture

Appointing Mental Health First Aiders is a positive step towards ensuring employees feel supported and valued, and building a psychologically safe culture where everyone is able to thrive. MHFA should form part of a holistic wellbeing programme that is linked to your company strategy and people plans. Without this alignment it may have little people impact and limited return on investment.

For guidance and support on all things mental health first aid, contact our HR consultants anytime on 0161 941 2426 or email us.

Further reading and listening

Podcast: Men’s Health Week

Free guide: Physical and Mental Health in the Workplace

CIPD - A practical guide to supporting mental health at work