Mind Matters strives to deliver excellence in the field of health and mental well-being. In order to meet our customer needs and volumes of training delivery, we may from time to time commission experienced Associate Trainers to increase our capacity, or with additional expertise in specialist mental health areas.
Trainer
Adrian spent most of his early career in the hospitality sector in senior management and operations roles looking after prestigious contracts across the city of London such as Goldman Sachs, Ernst & Young and several of the top 20 global law firms where the clientele expected 5 star service.
While doing this work Adrian regularly witnessed how the intense demands on individuals negatively impacted their mental health and the service levels they in turn delivered. This alongside having his own lived experiences of poor mental health, led to him setting up the charity Different Minds in 2017, with the aim of supporting organisations, particularly those in the charity sector, as well as individuals, to develop their skills around mental health and to reduce stigma and discrimination in the workplace.
In 2018 Adrian moved to delivering the Mental Health First Aid (MHFA) training full time and is approved to deliver all Adult courses and Youth MHFA 2-day & 1 Day courses. He is passionate about the topic has trained over a 1000 people over 100 courses across all MHFA Adult and Youth programmes. Working with organisations from Education, Public Sector, Manufacturing, Business and Industry, Hospitality, Aviation, Hotels, Media, Charity sector and Construction.
Alongside supporting the learning around MHFA and delivering Stress Awareness training, Adrian delivers ‘Lived Experience’ talks for organisations on his own journey with mental ill health, discussing openly his journey with early life poor mental health, lifelong depression, anxiety and the highs and lows he has been through.
Adrian advocates that both self-care and a strong understanding of the risk factors for poor mental health are key to thriving in all areas of life and work. This in tandem with education around mental health is essential to reducing stigma and discrimination, and this ethos carries into his personal life where he manages his own mental wellness through running, and has now completed 75 marathons/ ultra-marathons including the challenge of running 52 of them in 52 weeks.
Bill Cunningham
Trainer
Bill Cunningham is a psychologist who has been delivering mental health awareness training to the public, across the UK and Ireland, since 2007.
He was one of the first Mental Health First Aid instructors in England and has delivered courses to diverse groups in community, corporate and public settings ever since. This included working with officers and prisoners in prisons and extensive work training mental health advocates for Merseyside Fire and Rescue Service.
From 2009 to 2017 Bill was a National Trainer for the MHFA England CIC and trained 30 cohorts of new MHFA instructors, including 30 prison officers, to deliver the course in community and workplace settings.
As a Director of the Golden Tree Wellbeing CIC, he developed training courses using techniques derived from Cognitive Behavioural Theory, Mindfulness and Positive Psychology to help provide people with proactive tools to promote positive wellbeing. He has also designed courses delivered to NHS staff in Cumbria and to the armed forces community at Catterick Garrison.
From 2017 to 2019 he worked for the Saint John of God Hospital, Dublin. The hospital holds the licence to deliver MHFA in Ireland and his role as National Trainer involved delivering the training in the community and in corporate setting all over Ireland. He also developed the training materials and designed the MHFA Ireland instructor training programme, delivering three cohorts. In this role, he delivered a programme of courses for police officers (An Garda Siochana) several of whom went on to train as instructors. He remains an Associate Trainer for MHFA Ireland.
He is a member of the British Psychological Society, the Psychological Society of Ireland and is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts.
Chris Rollings
Trainer
Chris was a senior police officer for over 30 years and has extensive experience in managing people in often pressurised situations. As a senior leader he had a number of roles including being in charge of customer service, the call centre, and operational delivery. During his time in the police he also became a national lead in respect of missing persons and was involved in developing joint working with mental health services. With local providers he improved awareness and knowledge around mental health issues.
After a spell as a Head of Service for a social housing provider in the East Midlands Chris started providing resilience and confidence training to organisations and individuals. Chris is now an experienced Adult, Youth and Higher Education MHFA Instructor and in the last four years has delivered the two, one day and half day courses to organisations, industry, schools, colleges and youth workers across the country. As well as being an Associate trainer with MHFA England he is also an Associate trainer with Student Minds, delivering the Higher Education Course in Universities.
As a current crisis volunteer with SHOUT, the new national crisis text service, Chris supports those in crisis. He deals with a wide range of mental health issues and provides support to people at a time when they most need it. With a degree in psychology Chris has a passion to understand and help others. He is a very enthusiastic trainer with excellent feedback:
Dr Sam Littlemore
Trainer
I am a Child Psychologist, trainer, practitioner, academic and author who specialises in well-being, welfare and mental health issues. I have been training staff who work with children for many years. My courses focus on evidence and practice-based foundations of understanding, managing and applying interventions for various mental health and behavioural issues. I train staff in multiple settings. My approach is using the whole school/community/workplace approach and creating shared understanding of issues and interventions that as a whole help to support far more effectively throughout staff approaches. Adapting to, and adopting, appropriate language and communication aimed at empowering understanding and increasing intervention success forms a large part of my training courses.
An example of areas and topics that I cover include managing: ASD; Eating Disorders, Stress and anxiety; Self-harm and suicide; Mental Health; Girl Bullying; Attachment; Resilience; plus all other related topics and issues. For the foreseeable future ‘norm’, all of my courses will be delivered on-line over one or two mornings.
I also work directly with children and families as a practitioner. I worked in clinical assessment and diagnosis of Autism Spectrum Disorder Conditions before moving out of clinical and into behavioural. As a researcher, I focus on qualitative research and have worked for many leading children’s charities it the UK; where the remit is hearing the voices of young people in policy and practice. As an author I write for magazines, academic journals and universities. My book ‘Girl Bullying: Do I Look Bothered’ has sold well to schools and families in the UK and US.
I often write bespoke courses that are requested and also give Key Note speeches.
Gemma Skye Davies
Trainer
My passion is very much mental health and working as a community to keep mental health a top priority in everyone’s lives regardless of having a diagnosed condition. Mental health is an intrinsic part of us as human beingGemma Daviess and my desire is to work towards everyone being able to live their life to their optimum. I also have a keen interest in Military Psychology and the link and impact of cross cultural transition from military to ‘Civvy Street’ of which both my undergraduate and postgraduate studies are based.
Ian Hurst
Trainer
Ian Hurst is a highly skilled and creative communicator. Having spent many years in a corporate industry across various roles such as Business Development, Training Manager and Global Relationship Leader, Ian has built a wealth of knowledge and expertise which lends itself effectively and confidently to being and Associate Trainer with Mind Matters.
‘Following 17 years in corporate insurance, in a world that I never really was able to bring my ‘whole self’ to and after facing my own mental illness I took the MHFA course and to say it changed my life is an understatement!’
‘I was so driven by the content and motivated to make a change to others opinions and knowledge around mental illness, that I trained to become an MHFA instructor and left my corporate job. I have never looked back’
Having the opportunity to train individuals in a relaxed and engaging environment and feeling the energy and desire that radiates from them is such a rewarding experience.
Feedback from my sessions always reaffirms why I do this and my life is richer as a result. MHFA is a great course that everyone deserves the opportunity to attend.
Ian founded my own business in 2018, an organisation that aims to create a global community where people can achieve the strength and confidence they need to communicate openly.
Ivy Taylor
Trainer
Jase Smith
Trainer
Jase spent 35 years in the military and has over 20 years’ experience of designing and delivering training in leadership, management, mental health, wellbeing and resilience.
He has spent the last 9 years’ delivering mental health training to managers and employees in the workplace across many different industry sectors as well as supporting the British Army in the delivery of its mental resilience programme.
The COVID-19 pandemic encouraged Jase to resign from the Army and become a freelance trainer focussed on delivering a suite of adult and youth MHFA England accredited courses to a broad range of clients including large government departments, prisons, third sector, NHS trusts, schools, construction, automotive and rail industries.
Jase is driven to promote a mentally healthy workplace culture for everyone and his experience as a leader allows him to deliver training whilst fully understanding the challenges leaders and managers face in changing workplace culture. He uses this experience to deliver the Institute of Occupational Safety and Health, Managing Occupational Health and wellbeing course.
Jase has also worked as a practitioner supporting and providing interventions for people with mental health and other issues while his work in safeguarding has provided him with a good background in working with vulnerable people.
Jase is enthusiastic, experienced and driven to deliver high quality, accredited health and wellbeing training to suit the client’s needs.
Jo Morton-Brown
Trainer
My name is Jo Morton-Brown, and blending different roles into one, I am a BACP accredited school-based counsellor, a family support worker, and travel across the country as a provider of training to adults about the difficulties children and young people face with regards to their mental health. I am a passionate and committed advocate for the improvement of mental health, especially in children and young people. I also deliver specific training to organisations/educational settings about the importance of staff wellbeing; the key message is how staff members need to take responsibility to mind their own wellbeing, as well as feeling supported if and when they do ask for help.
Jon Simons
Trainer
Nassim Nicholas Taleb “Skin in the Game” says,
“If you want to be a Life coach go speak to a life coach – other than that, Why would you? They’re skilled at being a Life coach – that’s what they know.”
A few years ago, I was driven to breaking point – I’d had failed relationships at home and no matter how hard I worked I just didn’t seem to be able to move my career forward.
I had, for years identified myself as my job role – I’d say, “Hi I’m Jon the store manager.” So, failing in the role meant failing in life.
I had family, but as a divorced 40+ year old who didn’t see his “busy” children I failed at that too.
I reached a point where the pain exceeded my tolerance level.
I was lucky, I found help.
As a workaholic I found comfort in volunteering at Samaritans – before long I was on the training team, I was a duty leader, I was working alongside the branch Director in delivering support to 1,000’s of dancers at Cream Fields. All this while picking up duties on the phone. Using my leadership skills in a charitable environment was nicely building my altruistic defense mechanism, yes that really is a thing.
Samaritans is great and it undoubtedly saved my life. It wasn’t enough. I wanted to do more, I wanted to be more.
Now I have an BSc Hons degree in counselling and Psychotherapy – I have a private practice and I work full time as a Well Being leader in a national retail business. I’m ASIST (Applied Suicide Intervention Skills Training) trained and I work as an Mental Health First Aid instructor.
Why am I telling you this? Well I refer to my first point, you want someone who knows your people who know what it’s like in the corporate world today then that’s where I live and breathe. I empathise with the day to day pressure.
Jonny Ward
Trainer
Hi, my name is Jonny Ward AKA The Anxious Fireman. Full time I am a watch officer with The Fire and Rescue Service. Part time I am a qualified and practicing psychotherapist and mental health instructor. I fell into the mental health world following my own problems with anxiety. I started having panic attacks due to stress. These panic attacks became something I started to fear, which led to what is diagnosed as panic disorder with agoraphobia. A simpler way of looking at this is fear of fear. It took me some time to overcome and come to terms with my own anxiety and led me down the road of examining myself, my past, my upbringing, my feelings towards myself as a man and as a person. I never planned to become an instructor but as a started talking more openly and more publicly about my experiences I was sort of dragged further and further down the road of teaching and training. I trained to be a psychotherapist and a mental health first aid instructor. What I believe I can bring is first hand experience, academic knowledge and an ability to get over complex information in a manner that is understandable. I also work in the 999 services, in a male dominant environment and I feel this gives me a unique insight into that world. I am pragmatic, honest and very open on my courses, I do not bring any false hopes. I practice and teach in a person centred and existential way, looking at individual experiences.
Lianne Bowskill
Trainer
ianne has over 15 years’ experience working in the field of public health, prevention and mental health and wellbeing. She currently Lianne Bowskillworks part time as a mental health commissioning manager for a clinical commissioning group as well as managing her own freelance business delivering mental health first aid training. She is also a National Trainer for Mental Health First Aid England, which means that she trains people to deliver the mental health suite of courses to members of the public. A role which she is proud to undertake.
Lianne has an excellent understanding of nationally and locally commissioned mental health services, carer services and is knowledgeable in public health prevention programs such as smoking cessation and weight management programs. She feeds all her additional knowledge and experience into the sessions she delivers making them real and relatable for participants.
Lianne loves delivering the sessions and enjoys seeing people learn something new, commit to positive change and develop new skills and techniques to support others and to look after themselves a little better.
Lianne is really passionate about what she does and genuinely cares about doing a great job. She is known for going the extra mile, for being super organised and reliable, as someone who is great at communicating with delegates and contractors alike, who you can rely on to deliver assignments to a high standard as well as someone who is a people person who others warm to and engage with easily.
Lynda O’Malley
Trainer
My name is Lynda O’ Malley and I have been a Health and Social Care Trainer since around 2005 and have worked in the care industry most of my adult life (a lady doesn’t tell her age, so no clues!)
Although I enjoy delivering all of the mandatory and development courses I train, I have to say my real passion is for Scotland’s Mental Health First Aid, SMHFA/YP and Suicide Prevention training. All of which I have delivered to many different groups from small community groups to large organisations. I am an ASIST and SafeTALK trainer and have recently been awarded my silver pin from Livingworks Education in recognition of my 50th ASIST course, which is something I am incredibly proud of, even more so now that the figure is now probably in the 70’s.
I’ve got the hang of this online training thing now and have been doing some training via Zoom and Teams and hope to continue to reach people across the country in this way.
I come from a small village called Chapelton in sunny Scotland and live with my husband Ross and my Patterdale Terrier, Jerry. I also have two grown up children, John and Sarah, who have both flown the nest, but come back regularly when they’re skint or need to be fed.
Living in a small village is lovely but it has on occasion brought its own problems.
My very first online training was Mental Health Awareness to a group of Young Farmers.
20 minutes in everything crashed, No internet, no phone signal, no electricity. I was very calm as you can imagine (not!)
When we did eventually manage to get power back on we discovered the issue had been caused by Big Ron the bull in a nearby field scratching his backside on a pole which held some sort of transformer and he had knocked it off resulting in no power for 3 surrounding villages for hours.
What are the chances? We resumed our training afterwards and Big Ron become something of a local celebrity, I think we can say we all got something out of that!
Martin Lally
Trainer
Martin is a current serving Police Officer with Greater Manchester Police but has now built up a strong training delivery that is conducted in his spare time. Martin has been delivering Trauma Risk Management Training for Practitioners and Managers now since 2018 and since 2019 has been delivering the Mental Health First Aid two day and half day courses. Martin has worked with a plethora of different companies and delivers his courses with passion and energy and a real solid reality based ethos. Martin is a TRiM Manager and has worked on some really critical incidents such as the TRiM Response to the Manchester Arena Attack. Martin is a Winston Churchill Fellow of 2018 where he travelled to the USA and Australia and conducted a comparison study of responses to Type 1 and Type 2 trauma which has been a solid foundation for new working platforms in Martins day to day working. Martin also worked as a National Health and Safety Lead and holds the Level 4 CIEH in Health and Safety and the NEBOSH General Certificate
Martin is currently studying AS/A Level History and enjoys spending time with family when away from work, Martin is married with three children.
Peter Abbot
Trainer
Peter holds qualifications in teaching, assessing, internal verification, mental health, and mindfulness. Additionally, he is an accredited instructor for Mental Health First Aid England and is approved to deliver all 4 of their adult courses: 2-day Mental Health First Aid, 1-day Mental health Champion, ½-day Mental Health Aware and the ½-day Mental Health First Aid Refresher courses in the England. Peter is also approved to deliver MHFA England’s new Online Mental Health First Aid and Mental Health Aware courses.
Over 15-years’ experience of training and in addition to the above Peter has delivered a variety of different courses which has included L2 Award in Mental Health Awareness (Ofqual), Department for Transport training for airport security (Manchester Airport), and workshops in wellbeing, such as work/life balance, mindfulness, and stress coping techniques workshops.
He has delivered and supported a wide variety of clients across the UK, which include the charities Mind, Women Out of Prison, Clean Break and the British Institute for the Deaf. Further organisations include the Royal National Theatre, Shakespeare’s Globe Theatre, 3M, Total Oil, Certas Energy UK, Tescos’ Banking HQ, Netflix, Facebook, G Network and the NHS.
Peter’s commercial and ‘lived’ experience means he completely understands how employee health and wellbeing should be supported in the workplace. His training combines both theoretical and lived experience to bring the courses to life and in doing so enables delegates to see things from the perspective of someone who has had direct experience of mental health diagnosis.
Peter’s ethos is if you look after the workforce they will look after the business for you.
Sarah Wray
Trainer
Tara Powell
Trainer
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