My training experience began when I was working as an Assistant Psychologist. In collaboration with my supervisor and multi-disciplinary team, I built skills in training and completed research on the evidence-base behind the subject matters that I was interested in and had experience in working with. I then spent a great deal of time training residential care workers and other professionals on topics such as; attachment theory, the impact of trauma on the brain, parenting looked after young people, working with self-harm and other risk behaviours, recognising mental health difficulties, and emotion regulation.
Following this, I worked for a suicide prevention charity, on a suicide prevention helpline supporting people with thoughts of suicide and those helping others with these thoughts. During my time here, I completed training in the ASIST (Applied Suicide Intervention Skills Training) model, the only World Health Organisation-approved, evidence-based suicide prevention model. This was the model I used every day on the helpline and I built up experience in adapting the model based on who I was supporting. In this company, I became the manager of the helpline and a large part of this role was training others to support people with thoughts of suicide, adapting my approach to fit with a multitude of experiences and personalities. I also trained young people, parents, teachers, doctors, and other professionals within this role, focusing on suicide prevention in addition to self-harm, emotion regulation, and different areas within mental health.