– Well, welcome everybody. 

 – I got your message. Matt that a couple of people don’t have audio. But if you do have your video it would be lovely to have you on the screen just so I can see people and engage that way through able to but my name is Mel Schroeder. I’m the program director at calm Consulting and as Susie said she’s one of our trainers we were privileged to spend five days virtually together a little while ago. So Susie Works alongside us in the program. I’m tried really hard to condense a full day program into a 45-minute session. 

– So if I speak really fast bear with me if you’ve got any questions at all or want to reflect on anything at all, please just bounce on in and stop me. Um, so no problem at all Carol. I’ve got a big storm coming as well. So I’m just hoping my internet’s Gonna Last the distance to yeah what I done Is I thought I’m just going to talk you through a couple of the slides from our program just to give you an idea of what the areas are that we do cover. Um. Before we begin I would too would like to acknowledge the traditional custodians of the lands upon which we meet today. I’m in southeast Queensland to Southeast of Brisbane So currently I’m coming to you from Quandamooka country, but recognise all countries and communities across this great land as well as anybody who identifies with us today, and I’d like to pay my respects to Elders past present and emerging. I also want to thank iClick2Learn for the opportunity. 

– We’re really appreciate it and you know the broader we reach the better the conversations we can have hopefully so and idea of some of the learning outcomes from our program and I’m going to reiterate I can talk underwater. So anything anybody wants to know send me a chat bounce on in turning Michaels and let’s have a chat. We go through basic communication skills. How do we use and what can we do? What are they? And when are they applicable? We have a look at what account the counselling process itself is and then we drop that into what an accidental counsellor is and what the differences are. We have a look at it a couple of what it often term difficult conversations people who are in crisis who experiencing stress and or distress. We also have a look at dealing with anger and dealing with management and different strategies. We can bring to those conversations. Um, and then we have a look at who we are. We are 50% of any conversation. So we have a look at what is our style of communication, our values and our beliefs what is it that we bring to every conversation we have and raise awareness about the impact we can have when communicating with others. 

– Um how to know your boundaries and how to know when to refer somebody if to refer someone and when to refer someone for professional support, if you’re lucky enough to be able to access professional supports currently knowing the waiting lists that we have We do talk a little bit about what is mental illness. What is mental well-being. How do we know the difference? And what’s that Gap in between and we touch very briefly on suicide just given the prevalence especially for those of you in Rural and remote areas currently. and lastly we end with a self-care component of the program just looking at why it’s so important and what are strategies that we can use that aren’t the normal sort of referral points that we get. When talking about self-care, so that’s just a very basic overview of the day’s program. 

– So let’s speed it up and do it in 45 minutes. We start with what is counselling, what isn’t counselling and what is the role of the counsellor? So we usually have a really big discussion around this just for people to talk from their own experience. Um, what they think what they feel around this topic, and then we’re dropping to The definition of counselling per se. So I’m just going to break that down for you currently professional counselling is a safe and confidential collaboration between qualified counsellors and clients to promote mental health and well-being. Enhance self understanding and resolve identified concerns. Clients are active participants in the counselling process at every stage. Now the reason I do this is you know, for those of us that haven’t actually attended Counselling of therapy previously, you know, we see the movies somebody lying on a couch staring at the ceiling talking to some vague person behind them. That’s not really the process that sort of Forefront now right now, it’s really seen as an equal conversation the client bringing their knowledge their experience their needs and wants and then hopefully the therapist providing some skills and strategies for them to achieve what it is that they want to achieve. 

– I have just marked the fact that it needs to be confidential in order for it to be a safe space where we can be really vulnerable and share our concerns. It does need to be confidential but those of us that are professional counsellors do have certain criteria where we need to breach that confidentiality if we concerned about somebody’s safety or well-being or threats of harm. So I had just kind of pinpointed that path. The other part I want to really highlight is it’s about promoting mental wellbeing. It’s about overcoming those hurdles those barriers those stressors that stop us being the best that we can be. That’s really the intent of counselling. Yes. Sometimes we need to go back. To what we’ve been through but it’s also about looking forward. And accidental counsellor really is the right person at the right place at the right time. Many of us won’t and don’t access professionals many of us, even if we wanted to aren’t able to access professionals at the stage just due to demand the knee but an accidental counsellor is that person that people come to when they challenge all that person who’s brave enough to go to somebody else when they see that they I’m struggling. So that’s the main difference. It’s really qualifications. 

– And knowing the boundaries around when it is and isn’t appropriate to step into a difficult conversation. A perfect accidental counsellor and I won’t go through all of them, but I do want to go through a couple and if you’re able to tick this list, I want to say Well done. I’m still yet to meet the person who has every part of this is an aspect of themselves. But the first thing I want to just look at is being mature being mature doesn’t mean being as old as I am being mature is being able to be alongside someone without overlaying our stuff on them. It’s about being able to put our stuff aside and just being present for somebody. It’s about being real and genuine. It’s about there’s a woman called Brene Brown that talks she says vulnerability and courage of the same thing. They just spelled differently. So it’s about us being willing to be vulnerable as being brave enough to step into a space where there may be grief distress. Overwhelm and sort of sit in that space with somebody but it’s also that us knowing our limitations knowing when we’re just full to the brim and don’t have the capacity for anybody or anything else or knowing where this particular topic does need some professional assistance. guys I want just a moment. Don’t need to write the list down. But I want you to just have a quick think about who you spoke with yesterday. Text email phone call face-to-face. Just think about the interactions you had with people yesterday. And whilst you thinking about that I want you to consider is your name on that list. Because we speak to ourselves way more than respect anybody else. And the conversations with ourselves. Really influence our behaviour and our interactions with others. So when we talk about communication, we really need to kind of flick that lens on to ourself for a period of time because what we are thinking often influences what we’re saying or how we’re interacting so think about what we saying to ourselves, but then also if you are engaging in what may be a challenging conversation for you and all the other person.

– What are they saying to themselves? What is that little voice in their head saying whilst they speaking with you as well. if you can think about What may affect your responses to others? There’s a couple of things that we need to sort of drop down into what impacts on how we communicate. How we feeling both about what happened just before the conversation or what’s happening within the conversation or what’s going to happen afterwards? Thinking what do you thinking? We can speak it about 120 words a minute. We can think at about 360 words a minute. There’s 240 words a minute running around in our head even when conversing with somebody else judging trying to figure out what we’re going to say stressing about what’s being said being upset about what’s being said, whatever the case may be. Think about the topic. Is a triggering is it bringing up something that you’ve experienced before? Is it sort of impacting on how you on how you traveling? And then the other thing is if we think about sometimes we’re communication just goes, awry what’s happening in your life. What how many balls are you juggling? And how much Focus did you actually have on the conversation at the time? How well are you? Mentally and physically, well, I mean a little while ago and for those who did register for the program previously. I am really sorry that I had to cancel but we had quite a significant family event. I had to cancel my clients because I was not able to be present I wasn’t okay. So what else what else is going on? And then our responses are influenced by our values of beliefs our culture our background our upbringing our education our life experiences, you know, we are sort of framed and formed by those and we do spend a fair bit of time in this program sort of just teasing that a party little bit to see what else it is that we bring to just a random conversation. 

– All okay. All right. We all have different communication skills. We all we will have one that we normally follow and I use the word normal. And with all good intent, but there is one that will sort of be our default communication style. But then depending on whether we’re speaking to our boss. So we speaking to a young child that we speak into someone that we adore we speak in someone that we really dislike or a really passionate or don’t care about a topic will depend on whether we take on one of the other communication styles. basically communication falls into four quadrants so I’m going to start with passive down the bottom left hand corner passive is I want you to be okay. I’m willing to sit a subjugate my needs to make sure that you’re okay. And you get your needs met. It’s their personal continually apologises when in a conversation that person that’s not comfortable voicing their opinions in a meeting that person that just wants. Peace. The problem with passive is I don’t get my needs met. So I’m not okay, but I’m doing everything to assure that you are. Moving to the bottom right hand quadrant is passive-aggressive and I’m sure if you guys did have enough bandwidth. I would see a number of hands go up on this one about somebody that you’ve known who sort of engages in that passive aggressive style communication. I’m not okay, but you know what? I’m going to make damn sure. You’re not either. So passive aggressive is I’m not willing to actually out loud voice. 

– My concerns my needs my interests. But I’m going to let you know in a very subtle way that I’m not happy with what’s going on. I’m going to try and sort of sabotage anything that’s going on. I’m going to speak about you to others, but I will not speak to you. It’s that kind of constant undermining, right? No one’s okay and passive-aggressive moving to the top right hand quadrant aggressive. I’m fine. Don’t care about you. Pretty much. It’s about I will do what I need to do to get my needs made and you don’t even figure into that conversation. The last quadrant top left hand corner is assertive assertive is I am willing to voice my needs. I feel that I have a right to have my needs met. I am quite clear about what my opinion is and what underpins my opinion. But I’m gonna have a conversation with you. You’re out. Oops. I’m just changing randomly. I’m going to hear you Adam. I’m going to you know, we we can agree to disagree. That I’m going to let you have a voice and I’m also going to let you have the right to your opinion and hopefully we can meet somewhere in the middle. So being a search of is I’m okay, but I’m going to work really hard to make sure you are as well. So think about where you normally fall in one of those four quadrants. Because most of us will take one of those Styles as a sort of a default. assertive being the best and how do we be assertive? We learn to say no. Way easier said than done. We ask questions. We bring curiosity to our conversations to find out how people got these opinions why people are holding these belief systems what their experience was and was it different from ours? We express our personal likes and dislikes. We let people know what we think and feel uncomfortable doing that.

– We willing to accept compliments. How many of us do that? No, Adobe stupid. No. No, it wasn’t me. It was the team, you know. And we also willing to disagree. That’s being assertive and a lot of this program is learning the skills. The actual communication skills that are required to be a certain and be comfortable in that space without it dropping into being passive or aggressive. So using assertive language, I think the top one is the one any of you any ever done any communication training. I statements I feel I think I need. but what I’m going to let you know is what I feel what I’m experiencing and then I’m going to let you know why when you I feel really Devalued when you don’t take the rubbish out, sorry first thing you came to mind, but it’s about what I’m going to do is actually tell you that behaviour that’s impacting on me rather than me just pulling you lazy and unhelpful and and sort of blaming you I’m going to really articulate what it is the behaviour that I would like change because I’m really conscious that we can’t change people. Okay. All travelling. Okay happy to I am really ploughing through. All right, what makes a good listener? How do we know if someone’s actually listening to us or you know listening to those? 240 odd words running around in their head or thinking about something or someone else. What is it? We talk about being empathic all the time, but what actually is empathy.

– And then what stops us from being a good listener? In our program, we would spend a good hour in this space, but it’s about really focusing on what makes a good listener is curiosity. What makes a good listener is being able to park our judgments and actually hear this person’s experience. How do we know if someone’s listening? They’re engaged. They focus their body language tells us. And empathy hopefully I’ll have time to show you a short video later that empathy is. I’m willing to be brave enough to feel a little bit of what you feel. I’m willing to be brave enough to walk alongside you and let you be in pain. Because that is the best way for you to heal or come up with Solutions empathy is not trying to fix you empathy is just being willing to care and what stops us from being a good listener. We’re busy with disinterested. Our beliefs will our values have been triggered. Or we don’t have the capacity to take on anymore. little exercise so I’m gonna ask you to pop this in chat. There’s an old model of communication that’s called the Moravian model. But it basically breaks down communication into three areas. The first being verbal what we say what we hear. 

– The second being non-verbal our body language our facial expressions what our eyes are saying? And our third the third part of what we hear is tone of voice. how people say things I’ll give you a quick example, I never Said you were stupid. I never said you’re stupid. I never said. You were stupid. How we say things? So if you want to pop into the chat what percentage do you think is verbal that people here? How much of what people hear percentage wise do you think is verbal anybody able to just pop a number into chat Matt’s saying 10% Okay, so we’re ranging between 10 and 30 percent. beautiful What about body language? Facial expressions? How much what percentage do you think people here is our body language our face our eyes how we holding ourselves? 50% from Kelly, Mat saying 70 Elka Saying 70 40 all right. 35. Okay. So let’s go from 35 to 70. And let’s do tone of voice. What percentage of what we hear is tone of voice do you think? how people say 40 50 20 All right. So 20 to 50. We’re at about 300% here people, but that’s all good. Let’s see what Moravian says. Moravian says 7% of what we hear is verbal. 7% percent, that’s all especially when people are stressed and or distressed. 38% of what we hear is tone of voice for affect how people say things and 55% of what we hear is what we see. So rather than stressing about what we saying, let’s stress about being authentic and really present because 93% of what people are hearing isn’t our words but us does that make sense? Okay. So active listening being present. It’s about attitude. I want to hear what you saying. All of you so I can sense what you’re feeling. And follow what you thinking? I want to just be there for a moment for you in whatever way shape I can.

– One of the areas that we again spend a fair bit of time in our program is actually having a look at dealing with emotions emotions are tricky things. They’re not things that culturally we great at managing or sharing or sitting Within. Especially when people are grieving or really angry or really upset those sort of extremes of emotions often what we try and do is placate all things. But all the signs all the Neuroscience says the best way we can assist someone to manage their emotions is to name it. The same goes if you name it you name it so often if someone’s like really angry, you know, we’ll sort of go. Oh, you sound a tiny bit upset. That’s not naming it. It’s like gee you see Furious. 50% reduction in how they feeling just by naming it. There’s a beautiful book by a woman called Susan David and it’s called emotional agility. And she says emotions are just messages. And what that so what we need to do is if we feeling a strong emotion think about it as an external message. I’m currently feeling anger. What’s that anger trying to tell me it’s trying to tell me that whatever’s happening in. My life doesn’t reign with me my values where I want to be what I want to be doing or if I’m feeling completely Blissful. What is the message that everything’s working for me right now? The other thing that she says is we are so and you guys heard of the term toxic positivity. Got to be happy got to be grateful. Just got it.

– No, let the light shine regardless of how we actually feel. She says what that does is it causes us to be emotionally rigid. We sort of push down block down don’t share any of those strong emotions because other people are uncomfortable with it. And then one day the tiniest little thing happens and we flip our lid because this bottle of emotion just comes pouring out. So she says we need to be emotionally agile. We need to read the message and change whatever’s happening. According to the message received. Great YouTube clip on TED Talk for that as well. Let me see if I’ve got me. Yes, I have time to share this. I’m going to share. Oh stop. I’ve just got a few first. I’m going to share just a very quick little video just to break up. You have to listen to me. And then we’ll keep going. So what is empathy and why is it very different than sympathy? Empathy fuels connection sympathy drives disconnection empathy. It’s very interesting Teresa. Wiseman is a nursing scholar. Who studied professions very diverse professions were empathy is relevant and came up with four qualities of empathy perspective taking. the ability to take the perspective of another person or recognise their perspective as their truth staying out of judgment not easy when you enjoy it as much as most of us do recognising emotion in other people and then communicating that empathy is feeling with people.

– And to me I always think of empathy as this kind of Sacred Space. When someone’s kind of in a deep hole and they shout out from the bottom and they say I’m stuck it’s dark. I’m overwhelmed and then we look and we say hey I’m down. I know what it’s like down here and you’re not alone. Sympathy is. Oh, it’s bad. Uh-huh. No, you want sandwich. Empathy is a choice and it’s a vulnerable choice because in order to connect with you. I have to connect with something in myself that knows that feeling. rarely, if ever does it empathic response begin with at least I had it. Yeah, and we do it all the time because you know what someone just shared something with us that’s incredibly painful and we’re trying to Silver Lining it. I don’t think that’s a verb. But I’m using it as one. We’re trying to put this a little lining around it. So I had a miscarriage. At least you know, you can get pregnant. I think my marriage is falling apart. At least you have a marriage. John’s getting kicked out of school at least Sarah is an a student but one of the things we do sometimes in the face of very difficult conversations is we try to make things better if I share something with you, that’s very difficult. I’d rather you say I don’t even know what to say right now. I’m just so glad you told me. Because the truth is rarely can a response make something better. What makes something better is connection. Just stop my sound. I will. Oh no, we’re not gonna watch that again. I will pop. Um the woman who does that little clip is called Brene Brown and she has got a YouTube clip call to courage. It’s 45 minutes. 

– But if you wanting to really hone in your communication skills, I think it’s some of the best 45 minutes. You can spend a puppet in the chat shortly. Another part this is a very skills oriented program. And I’ve said that before but another component of what we try and do through. This is an accidental counsellor’s often dealing with strong emotions. Um as well as conflict, so we have a look at the theories that underpins a lot of conflict resolution as well as how to kind of hold ourselves when the person that we’re engaging with is expressing really strong emotions. How do we Focus on what their experiencing rather than judging whether it’s a valid response or not. Some of the ideas is how you both feeling. Is there a reaction caused by you or you just the right person at the right place the right term that’s getting this response name. what they feeling actually call it out. If you’re wrong. It doesn’t matter they’ll correct you but it gives them an opportunity to feel heard and sort of calm down emotionally. Let them know how you feel. It doesn’t matter if you agree or disagree with their response, it’s just about coming alongside and validating the fact that they’re entitled to their response. Try and stay calm way easier said than done especially if someone’s yelling at you absolutely acknowledge that but we mirror we will mirror what’s in front of us and remember 55% and what people are hearing is our body language. 

– So if we can appear to become if we can appear to being controlled neurobiologically about automatically mirror what they sing in front of us and calm down whereas if we escalate with them. It’s just not going to end well, and then let your body do the talking as I’ve just said. A crisis a crisis is something that overwhelms us. A crisis is what we perceive to be a time of intense difficulty or danger. It doesn’t have to be life-threatening. But it does overwhelm what we perceive is our capacity to cope. And often a crisis is sort of the last straw Factor will cope will cope will cope and then something will happen and it’s all just too much and we may respond and people on the outside will be looking at us going that was a little bit intense, you know intense response for what just occurred. But sometimes that crisis may be the breaking point and a crisis can impact on everything in our lives. Think about a time where you experienced a crisis. It’s emotional. There’s all of these emotions running through sometimes changing every millisecond feels like you’re on this emotional roller coaster or sometimes. It’s just a strong emotion that anchors you into a space in place. Suddenly the world’s not safe anymore because this has happened. 

– So what else can happen? So there is that sense of uncertainty both will I couldn’t deal with that. So what about the next thing how am I going to deal with that? And then there are psychological or psychosocial impacts as well, you know crisis impacts on how we sleep how we eat whether we self-medicate using drugs and alcohol whether we can engage with other people just how we function. Um can be a crisis but we do unpack that to quite a quite a large degree to allow people to sort of understand and then give you the tools to be with somebody who’s experiencing a crisis. And help them sort of feel that Safety and Security in the conversation with you. There two ways of dealing with a crisis. Crisis, but get everything and run or forget everything and rise. We’re used to say there was post-traumatic stress disorder, you know you experience something’s really significant and it caused you to become unwell. the flip side of that is sometimes we experience something really extraordinarily or difficult and it makes us something bigger and better so and accidental counsellor can provide a space for somebody to do the latter. And if we’re not able to do that with the skillset that we have we can then link them to professionals. Should there be in the former stage still? How am I going on time? Let’s sing this we’re doing well people, okay? oftentimes an accidental counsellor will be the person of there are so many of us that are now diagnosed with the mental health concern they say that Two out of five of us will be diagnosed. That’s a diagnosis. That’s actually walking in and seeing a GP and getting diagnosed from mental health condition every 12 months.

– That’s almost 50% of us three out of five of us will over our lifetime experience the space and place where we whether we see a GP or a psychologist to a psychiatrist or not. We will experience a time in our life where our emotional state or mental state just overwhelms that capacity to Hope Anxiety is the most diagnosed. Diagnosis, so that’s a good English, um currently in this country and there is something like 70 different types of diagnoses we can get for anxiety. But anxiety just means I’m not coping there’s a thing on Facebook and it says depression is the past Depression is all those things that have happened to us that seem unfair or just weigh us down. Anxiety is the future. It’s all of those things that are coming in impending that we worried about. So, how do we assist someone if they are really heightened or really anxious when we start the conversation with them? Make sure they are safe psychologically emotionally and physically let them know they currently they are safe if they are and if they’re not get them somewhere safe. Anxiety makes us breathe up here. And because we’re breathing shallowly, it causes us to breathe more carbon monoxide which causes us to get even more heightened the best way to calm someone down is get them to breathe right down into their belly get Based system oxygenated get their system to slow down.

– So do breathing breathing for four hold for two out for four sounds really silly. But within three or four breaths the person can genuinely come down. Listen. Just listen with care. Keep them engaged go for a walk get them outside get them a glass of water do whatever it is to just keep them down and model. Just use your body use your tone of voice to just bring calmness to the situation and neurobiologically they will mirror you on that. Okay. Cool, I’m gonna have a drink. Mental Health mental health is just this word. We throw around randomly. We often don’t know if that means I’m mentally really well. I’m mentally really ill or I have a diagnosis one grieving or it’s just the sort of broad umbrella term that we use so often, um, if we actually have a look at the definition from the World Health Organisation around mental health, it says mental health is a state of well-being in which every individual realises his or her own potential. Can cope with the normal stressors of Life can work productively and fruitfully and is able to make a contribution to his or her community. Let’s flip that. Mental illness if it’s diagnosed is when we have symptoms that last for two weeks or longer. That stop us being able to do what’s written on the screen in front of you. Some mental illnesses, we can’t function we can’t work. 

– We can’t get out of bed. Some mental illnesses our anxieties just too great for us to enjoy our lives or our depression is just too debilitating or whatever other diagnosis or label. We may have attached to us. That’s the spectrum of mental health mental illness. So if we have a look at it. Sorry, I’ll come back to that one. If we have a look at it as a spectrum down the one end. We have mental illness. At the other hat and we have mental well-being. Okay, and it is a Continuum and sometimes for those of us that have diagnosis or chronic illness. Sometimes we will be down the bottom a large component of the time. Other times we may be up and be mentally well mentally functioning gain the support that we need and then as life, you know, we have a couple of days of bad sleep or we get the flu or we can oscillate along that as to how we feeling right? If we have a look at what all the practitioners tell us they say we should do all these physiological things to make us feel better. We should eat. Well sleep. Well get enough exercise have good sleep hygiene get enough nutrients. It’s no do all of these things. Sometimes we do them though, and they’re not enough. and I went to a conference, um a little while ago and saw this model and I thought to myself this makes so much more sense than that continue because I know people that have been diagnosed with really significant mental illnesses and live their best life and our amazing people and a productive and a fulfilled and I know other people that have no diagnosis or label attached to them and yet their lives are just blah. You know, it’s hard to get out of bed. It’s hard to find energy or Joy. It’s just hard. That’s languishing and flourishing. So if we have a look at mental illness differently.

– Yes, absolutely. There is a budget I Continuum between mental wellbeing and mental illness. And we need to do those things that we need to do to stay as mentally. Well as we can regardless of any labels or diagnosis the other side of it is we also need to make sure that we feel our souls with things that give us meaning do things that bring us joy be with people that give you know, that that provides support or engagement so that we don’t language but we flourish Flourishing making sure that we’re socially okay. We’re emotionally. Okay as well as being psychologically. Okay. Those are the three aspects that we need to sort of cover or work within to flourish and live that life of joy. Okay. It is. 2:15 now I do have a video, but I’m wondering Kellie if I just shared the link To the video with you to share with participants post. To give us some time for questions or whether people wanted to watch it now and just miss question time. Anybody got any preferences? I’m happy to be guided by what the participants want to do on flexible with time. anybody like to watch it now Lisa and everybody agree with this anybody feel different. Happy to watch now or let’s watch it. Now. I’m going to caveat this suicide has touched over 85% of Australians. Now in some way either through our own journey and lived experience or that of someone that we know and love. So if you have recently been touched either through your own journal the Journey of somebody else. Please feel free. Just turn your video of Turn your sound off and join us again in six minutes. Um, otherwise just take care of you whilst we watch this video. This is just about why it’s so important to us.

– Oh, I do need to share sound as well. Otherwise, I’ll have to mind that the music. What’s the point? I’m just so tired. It’s too hard. How hard it would be to include me? I’ve had a good life so Mel. Can you tell me why is it so important to ask about? You may say someone’s life. It’s really that simple. We don’t ask because we’re frightened people don’t ask for help because they frightened and They shamed and oftentimes they get shut down or told not to be stupid or but if we can ask about suicide if we’re wrong. It doesn’t mean we didn’t care. But if we write we might actually be the person that supports this this person out of that hopeless stage to appointment they get help. I’m waiting for someone to ask. I’m waiting for someone to ask. I’m waiting for someone to ask. I’m waiting for someone to ask I’m waiting for someone to ask I’m waiting for someone to ask asking about suicide is such a scary thing to do. I don’t know if I could do it. And how would I know the right time to actually ask?  

– Honestly, I think that’s a Gut feeling it’s about. being aware of those now environment looking what they doing seeing if they’re in pain having a look at everything, you know what they saying what they doing what they not doing what they not saying any changes in this situations or circumstances and asking what it means for them and then when they talking listening to our gut And being brave enough if we’re wrong. It’s no big deal. But if we’re right. We may save their life. What if they say yes, where would you go from there? You would need to take a very big breath. Acknowledge How brave they are for disclosing that to you. And you then following that bravery it’s about making sure that they are connected to the services that they need to keep them safe. We call it a warm Handover. Oh, okay. Yeah, so it’s about taking them getting them to their GP getting them to make an appointment with the counsellor making sure they’ve got family around if necessary taking them to a hospital getting hold of a helpline just connecting them with services that can then help them overcome the things that got them to think of. And you’re talking earlier about an app called be connected. Is it? Yeah, tell us about that.

– Our emphasis our mission I guess in doing what we’re doing. It’s about hope we really want to reinstall destigmatise this topic but reinstall hope when it comes to Suicide so be connected is about providing the person who maybe suicidal or thinking of suicide with an app which will give them a list of people that they nominate and then a list of texts that they can send. It may just be today’s bad day. I’m really struggling at the moment. I need to see my GP straight away call me immediately so that those that are in their environment no and can be reached in an instant. The flip side to the app is a number of statements that may just reaffirm the hope and the strength they displaying in keeping a light while it works for everything else.

– Thank you for asking. Thank you for helping. Thank you for noticing. Thank you for asking. Thank you for listening. Thank you for caring. you if that has touched anyone please. Feel free to stay post this happy to have a chat through but I think one of the aspects of being an accidental counsellor that we do focus on is how to support someone should there be mental health distress and a suicidal ideation. Um, sort of we don’t go into it in a great amount of debts, but we do cover it. um And I think the reason is it’s about hope it’s about supporting people to identify hope and then as I said in the video linking them to the supports that can get through. Remember, we’re not professionals as accidental counsellors. So we need to know boundaries. What can we do? When do we need to get professional support to help and how much are we carrying? And where can we go? To get help when we need it. They are our details should you want to sort of cover anything or make any contact at all down the track happy, even if it’s just around a conversation around something that somebody’s experiencing. It doesn’t necessarily have to be around engaging in our training. but that was eight hours and 48 minutes.

– Sorry. Thank you Melanie. I think I can say on behalf of everyone what an amazing and Powerful presentation. I’m definitely going to look to do the course myself. But I’m I’ll just stop recording now.