Mental Health
Physical Health
Purpose
WHY WE'RE HERE TODAY
Rejuvenate® is here to educate people to know what to do in a first aid situation. To raise awareness of what mental health is, reduce the stigma of talking about mental health issues and empower workplaces to support their teams, improve wellbeing in the workplace and make a positive difference to individuals and those around them.
Vision
WHAT WE INTEND TO DO
Our vision is to be part of the solution to the mental health crisis in the UK. To do everything possible to educate and empower people to be the difference in a First Aid situation and help save lives. To educate about intervention and help prevent the negative spiral of poor mental health before it deteriorates into a crisis.
Mission
THE ACTIONS WE'LL TAKE
Our mission is for every workplace, education setting and organisation in the UK to match the same number of mental health first aiders as they have physical first aiders. We aim to redress the balance and save lives by empowering everyday heroes and the next generation to make a positive difference for themselves and others with improved understanding and mental health literacy.
Karen
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Our story
After raising a young family as a lone parent and doing various part-time jobs to support herself after leaving an abusive marriage, Karen started her training career nearly 10 years ago as a St John Ambulance First Aid Trainer Assessor, which she became passionate about and enjoyed her time providing workplace training.
Over the years, Karen has experienced several adverse life events that took their toll on her mental health and as a result she has lived experience of mental ill health and recovery. During this time she also experienced the loss of a colleague to suicide. These life experiences set her on a course to find out as much as she could about Mental Health, and self-taught the subject for many years.
When St John Ambulance branched out into this area to deliver MHFA England accredited courses, Karen jumped at the opportunity and applied to become a Mental Health First Aid Instructor. She was interviewed and accepted, took the training and began delivering the courses alongside the physical First Aid training.
Karen worked with the team, mentored new trainers and won several awards for her mental health workplace training. She went on to introduce a new way of teaching about mental health in an emotional storytelling way with her award-winning and now trademarked Character Journeys®.
With a constant drive to learn more, Karen continued her personal and professional development with additional studies in CBT therapy (Level 2-5), Counselling (Level 2) and Safeguarding (Level 2 & 3). Whilst they interested her and and helped support her training, she knew her passion was educating people in first aid, particularly in mental health first aid, raising awareness and reducing stigma. Karen continues to study NLP and Life Coaching as part of her personal development.
When the pandemic hit in 2020, Karen was furloughed and was later offered voluntary redundancy. Karen saw this as her opportunity to embark on her business journey. At a time when online training became the new normal, she used her lived experience and knowledge to start delivering online Mental Health First Aid training.
This is how the story of Rejuvenate Mental Health began...
In 2023, Karen extended an invitation to her brother Gary to join Rejuvenate and combine his business knowledge, people skills, and first aid experience to embark on becoming the first trainer to join her business.
Gary has been a Mental Health First Aider for six years, with his journey starting when providing support to colleagues and customers experiencing poor mental health, mental ill health or in a crisis, he then went on to become an Accredited MHFA England Instructor Member. Gary finds it hugely rewarding to see the positive impact MHFAiders have on the lives of others and is proud to continue making a positive difference in his role as a Rejuvenate First Aid Trainer.
People matter, and through his own lived experience of mental ill health, Gary is a strong believer in treating others as you would like to be treated, and whilst things can happen that are out of our control, there is no shame in seeking the help and support of others.
As we approach our 5th year anniversary in 2025...
Rejuvenate Mental Health has a new, bold and unique identity created to reflect the business growth and development and take Rejuvenate® First Aid into the next stage of workplace training.
Gary
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