Health and wellbeing training

Camden Council Health and Wellbeing Department offer courses to support learning about different health and wellbeing needs. All the courses are free for anyone who works, volunteers, studies or lives in Camden. 

The training will help you understand some of the challenges Camden residents face. Courses aim to build awareness, knowledge and practical skills (such as how to have supportive conversations) about issues such as money worries, finding work, housing problems, mental health and wellbeing, suicide prevention, and support for people who are grieving.

Places often fill up quickly, but don not worry — these courses run throughout the year, and new dates are added regularly. We publish new course dates as soon as they become available. 

Which course is right for you?

• Mental Health Awareness: for anyone
• Mental Health in the Workplace for Managers: for staff with people management responsibilities
• Mental Health First Aid (adult): for anyone
• Suicide Awareness training: for anyone whose role might bring them in direct contact with people who have suicidal feelings
• Suicide let’s talk: for staff and volunteers who come in contact with residents
• Bereavement Awareness: for staff and volunteers who come in contact with residents
• Making Every Contact Count/ Good Conversations: for staff and volunteers who come in contact with residents
• Psychological First Aid: for staff and volunteers who come in contact with residents
• Stop Smoking Awareness (level 1): for staff and volunteers who come into contact with residents
• Substance Misuse Training: for staff who come in contact with residents
• Gambling harm reduction: for anyone whose role might bring them in direct contact with people who may be affected by their own or someone else’s gambling

Book your place on any of these courses using the links in the relevant section.

If you book a place, make sure you can attend all sessions, especially for courses that run over multiple days. This is important for group learning, and it helps us make the most of our budget. While courses are free for you, we pay a significant cost per participant — even if someone books a place and does not attend. If you need to cancel, do so in good time so that your place can be offered to someone on the waiting list.

Training courses

Our courses do not turn people into expert counsellors, but give people valuable tools to help someone in the first instance. Our courses are not about adding to staff workloads or about staff becoming experts in mental health but are about taking an opportunity to have valuable conversations and to point people to support available.

Our mental health and suicide prevention training courses are primarily focused at staff and residents who do not work in mental health, to reflect a whole-system approach to prevention and support and to reinforce that mental health is everyone's business.  

The Mental Health Awareness course, delivered by Rethink Mental Illness, gives you the knowledge and skills to better understand mental health and mental illness. It also helps you recognise stigma and discrimination. Most importantly, the training supports you to have confident, good quality conversations about mental health with residents, friends, family or colleagues. The course is usually run online, but face-to-face sessions can be arranged for workplaces that have a large enough group.

Duration: 3.5 hours including short breaks online or 4 hours in-person.

Find the course outline and learning objectives.

Book your place

Mental Health in the Workplace for Managers training, delivered by Rethink Mental Illness, uses activities and case studies to introduce key topics such as understanding your own wellbeing, what mental health and mental illness mean, and the stigma that people living with mental illness can face. It considers the signs and symptoms of general mental ill health and how this might also show up in the world of home working and remote line management, including how you might spot poor mental health in an email or phone call.

Participants learn how to have supportive conversations about mental health at work, as well as the importance of self-care and role modelling healthy habits.

The training covers practical workplace tools including: 

• how to complete a stress risk assessment 
• how wellbeing plans can help 
• how to explore reasonable adjustments. 

Duration: 3.5 hours online or 4 hours in-person

Find the course outline and learning objectives.

Book your place

Mental Health First Aid is a recognised training programme that teaches you how to spot when someone may be experiencing a mental health problem or crisis. Like physical first aid, it gives you the skills to offer initial support, listen without judgement, and guide people towards professional help. When you finish the course, you will be a certified Mental Health First Aider. 

Duration: The online course is split into 4 live sessions of up to 4 hours, on 4 separate days. If delivered in person, the course is run over 2 full days. You must attend all sessions.

Find the course outline and learning objectives.

See upcoming dates and book your place 

Suicide Awareness training, delivered by Rethink Mental Illness, is designed for anyone working in public-facing roles who may come into contact with people experiencing suicidal thoughts. The course explores suicide, suicide stigma and will help you to recognise signs of distress and guide you to have safe and confident conversations with someone who is suicidal, while taking care of yourself. It does not turn you into a counsellor.

The course has been co-produced by lived experience experts and uses interactive activities and case studies to create an engaging learning experience. Participants learn about the scale of the issue, the stigma around suicide and how to challenge it, the factors and warning signs that can lead to suicidal feelings, and how to look after themselves while supporting others.

Duration: 4 hours, in person or online

Find the course outline and learning objectives.

Upcoming dates and book your place 

This free online training shows how you can help people who might be contemplating suicide by bringing up the subject and offering support. The course is accessible without any kind of registration or login.

Duration: Two courses available

20 minutes

5 to10 minutes

Cruse Bereavement Care offer an online course on Bereavement Awareness with the aims of giving you the confidence to:

• talk to people who are bereaved in a simple, empathetic way
• help you find the right words
• provide simple signposting to additional support, where needed

The course content will be particularly relevant for frontline workers who meet with bereaved people, but anyone who lives, works, studies or volunteers in Camden can join. Registration is required.

Select your preferred date in the list below to register. 

Course dates for 2026

• 19 February, 4pm - book your place here
• 20 April, 12.30pm - book your place here
• 16 June, 2pm - book your place here
• 24 August, 2pm - book your place here
• 15 October, 3pm - book your place here
• 9 December, 1.30pm - book your place here

Making Every Contact Count (MECC), delivered by Social Marketing Gateway, equips participants with the tools to spot an opportunity in conversations with residents and the confidence to deliver brief advice and help local people improve their wellbeing.

The Good Conversations skills training is delivered virtually and supports frontline workers to Make Every Contact Count (MECC) during addressing challenging issues around people’s lifestyle, wider determinants of health like money or work. It is a highly interactive online course, which aims to build confidence, knowledge and skills required for good conversations  and be ready to engage residents about difficulties they face. With its strong emphasis on core communication skills, the course also provides excellent foundation-level training for staff who plan to engage in more specialist training in areas such as Mental Health First Aid, Domestic Violence and Motivational Interviewing. The course includes an introduction to using online resources to support good conversations and signpost residents to further help.

The Basics of Motivational Interviewing offers a more advanced training, suitable for those who can talk to residents for 10-15 minutes about changes they can make in their lives. The training provides the knowledge and confidence to support participants in making healthy and positive life changes. 

Duration

• Good Conversations skills for MECC: 2 hours
• Basics of Motivational Interviewing: 3 hours

To book your place and find out more about our MECC training programme go to: Camdenmecc.org.uk or Islingtonmecc.org.uk.

If you would like to book a course exclusively for your team, contact [email protected].

It is a live online course for small groups, delivered by Breathe stop smoking service. Whatever your reason of contacting a resident, the course will help you raise the topic of smoking confidently and positively, understand and explain what Breathe stop smoking service can offer and make a referral. The course will improve your knowledge of tobacco addiction, the impact of smoking on health, the benefits of stopping smoking and what works to help smokers quit, including behavioural support and medications.

Duration: 1.5 hours

To arrange a course date for your team, or find available dates, contact [email protected]

If you are interested in substance use training you can contact the public health commissioning team at [email protected]

Training is provided by Change, Grow, Live (CGL). We will liaise with the service about offering training.

Harm from gambling is a serious but hidden problem. Harms are not just financial, and can include impacts on physical and mental health (including an increased risk of suicide), relationships (including domestic abuse), employment and education. These harms can impact those around the person gambling as well as directly. 

An estimated 600 Camden residents are gambling at levels that cause them harm, with a further 5,000 gambling at levels that put them at risk of harm, and 13,000 harmed from someone else’s gambling.

This session enables you to learn more about how gambling related harm can impact individuals and those affected by somebody else's gambling. 

Learning objectives include:

• learners will develop their knowledge, skills, understanding and awareness of gambling related harms (GRH)
• learners with understand the nature of harmful gambling and gambling-related harms and their impact on health and wellbeing
• learners will know how to provide help and support to an individual at risk of, or affected by, gambling related harms and signpost to appropriate specialist services

The session will last for 90 minutes. 

Upcoming dates 

Book your place for:

• Monday 16 March, 10am to 11.30am