Mental Health First Aid Australia has chosen not to be part of the Vocational Education and Training (VET) scheme to date. The setting up of VET was to ensure that training programs reach an acceptable level of rigour. Be assured that MHFA Australia has a level of academic research and rigour that reaches and surpasses VET requirements. Also, to maintain this rigour, we have a thorough application process for new instructors and a continuous quality improvement program rather than allow an external Registered Training Organisation (RTO) to do this.
MHFA International has an ongoing research program to develop and maintain international MHFA Guidelines. Since 1st July 2015, MHFA Australia has developed a 3 year accreditation program for MHFA participants to accredit them against these guidelines. It is similar to the way National First Aid Standards (which are used to develop and update Red Cross, St Johns Ambulance, etc. First Aid Courses) are held by the Australian Resuscitation Council. Read more about the MHFAider Accreditation Program.
Some TAFE institutions in NSW and the ACT have made the 12-hour Standard MHFA course eligible as recognised prior learning for the Cert IV in Mental Health (non-clinical).
As far as we are aware from the published literature, this is the only mental health education course for the public that has strong evidence for its effectiveness. The level of evidence meets the top National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC) criteria (i.e. level 1 evidence for an intervention).
A complete list of national and international evaluations of the MHFA program can be found on our MHFA International website https://mhfainternational.org/mhfa-program-evaluations/