Mental Health and Wellbeing Essentials Workshops Update

By Todd Milner, Director of Mental Health and Wellness/Board Member for Father’s Club

At the end of 2023, I announced a series of Mental Health and Well Being Essentials courses that would be offered in the first quarter of 2024. Father’s Club kicked off its 2024 Mental Health & Wellbeing Essentials workshops In January! 25 dads gathered to learn skills and be better equipped to talk about mental wellbeing with their families, their buddies, and their communities!

Our goal is to train 1,000 dads in 2024 and we have gotten off to a great start!

This course introduces and expands upon the fundamentals of mental health and well-being. Participants will gain an understanding of what impacts our mental health, common challenges, and the importance of emotional and psychological well-being. Men, in particular, often tend to disguise and quash issues related to their friends’ or their own mental health. Attendees will learn why this is an important topic to Father’s Club through presentation and group discussion. At the conclusion of the course, we will learn how we can all make a difference in our lives, at home and in our community.

An important element of the workshop is QPR (Question, Persuade & Refer)

QPR is a suicide prevention training for the participants to be able to recognize the warning signs of suicide by learning how to question, persuade, and refer people at risk for suicide for help.

Not only will the attendees leave the workshop better equipped to handle hard conversations, but they will take with them a 2-year QPR certification, a Father’s Club Challenge Medallion and a toolbox full of ways to help others struggling or in crisis find help, healing and resilience!

A main objective of the courses is to add Three simple things to each dad’s toolbox that allow them to help them to be intentional about their own mental wellbeing, as well as lead their families in learning how to be more resilient. Father’s Club’s Mental Health & Wellbeing Essentials Workshops teach and discuss very simple, but important rules of how to…

1. Find Quiet Time – work on YOU! Unplug daily or Take inventory of what’s working and what’s not in YOU!
2. Do something with your family each week! No phones, no complaining, no big family meeting, no Just find time to talk & LISTEN!
3. Do something to impact others? Write a handwritten note to your kids, your spouse and those who need an encouraging word! Make a phone call or go grab coffee with someone who just needs someone to listen to them!

Take the Course!

Several courses have been scheduled in the first six months of this year, and several more are expected to be planned in the second half of the year. Signing up is very easy: Simply click on the Events page of the Father’s Club website, click on a Mental Health + Workshop event that is convenient for you, and register. There is a $40 fee that is requested in the application process to help defray expenses, which includes a light meal and some materials.

Don’t hesitate to take advantage of this exceptional opportunity to help you become aware of some simple tools that will make a huge difference in your life and the lives of your loved ones.