Mental Health Awareness – Care Sector

Mental health awareness training for care settings, delivered at your workplace or live online. Half a day, or a full day workshop on request. How mental health presents alongside dementia, learning disability, and other care needs, and what genuinely person-centred support looks like in practice.

Course Overview

Mental health does not exist separately from the rest of a person’s care needs. In health and social care settings, it sits alongside everything else: alongside dementia, alongside learning disability, alongside physical health conditions, alongside the effects of medication, alongside grief, loss, and the experience of living in a care environment rather than your own home.

Staff who are only trained to see the primary diagnosis will miss what is happening with mental health. And when mental health is missed, the consequences show up as behaviour that gets labelled as challenging, as refusals of care that nobody understands, as withdrawal that looks like deterioration when it is actually distress. A person with dementia who is also experiencing depression is not just showing further cognitive decline. A person with a learning disability who becomes agitated is not necessarily displaying a behaviour management issue. These presentations need to be understood in their full context, and that requires care workers who know what mental health looks like when it sits alongside other conditions, not just when it presents in isolation.

This is one of the most consistent and consequential gaps in care training. Teams who have covered dementia awareness and learning disability awareness separately, but who have never been given the tools to recognise how mental health intersects with both. Staff who don’t know how to support someone through a mental health episode because nobody has ever shown them what good support looks like in a care setting. Not a clinical intervention. Not diagnosis. The everyday, moment-by-moment response that either helps a person feel safe and understood or makes things significantly worse.

This course gives care staff exactly that. Mental Health Awareness in Health and Social Care is a practical, care-specific course that covers what mental health is, how it presents in real care environments, how it sits alongside other conditions and diagnoses, and what good person-centred support looks like in practice. It supports Care Certificate Standard 9 (Awareness of Mental Health, Dementia and Learning Disability) in full, and aligns with the expectations of the Care Quality Commission, Skills for Care, NICE guideline NG222, NICE guideline CG113, NICE guideline NG53, and the Health and Social Care Act 2008 (Regulated Activities) Regulations 2014.

Course Details

  • Duration: Half-day (3 to 4 hours), or full-day workshop option available
  • Delivery: Face-to-face in-house or live online via Zoom or Microsoft Teams
  • Certificate: CPD-Accredited Certificate of Achievement in Mental Health Awareness in Health and Social Care
  • Awarding organisations: HTN CPD-Accredited
  • Validity: No formal expiry. Refresher is recommended every 2 to 3 years, or sooner following significant changes in guidance, following incidents or concerns, or where changes in the service user group or staff roles warrant review.
  • Group size:   Maximum 15 learners per trainer

Who This Course Is For

This course is right for any care staff whose role involves supporting individuals who may experience mental health challenges alongside other care needs.

  • Support workers and care assistants in residential care, supported living, and domiciliary care
  • Senior carers and team leaders
  • Residential and nursing home staff
  • Domiciliary care workers
  • Health and social care professionals working in community settings
  • Managers and supervisors responsible for ensuring person-centred care planning reflects mental health needs

It is particularly valuable for services supporting individuals with dementia, learning disabilities, acquired brain injuries, or complex needs where mental health conditions frequently co-occur and are often under-recognised. For general workplace mental health awareness outside a care context, see our Mental Health Awareness (All Sectors) course. Not sure which is right for your team? Get in touch, and we’ll help you work it out before you commit.

Why This Training Matters

Mental health affects a significant proportion of people receiving health and social care in England, and it is rarely the only thing going on. Depression is estimated to affect around 40 per cent of people living with dementia. Anxiety disorders are significantly more common in people with learning disabilities than in the general population. People living in residential care settings are at higher risk of mental health difficulties, including depression and loneliness, than those living independently. These are not edge cases. They are the population care staff who support every day.

Skills for Care is clear that the adult social care workforce needs to be equipped to recognise and respond to mental health needs across the people they support. That means understanding mental health not in isolation but in the context of the full picture of an individual’s needs, conditions, and circumstances.

Under CQC Regulation 9: Person-Centred Care, providers must ensure that care is designed around the individual’s specific needs, preferences, and circumstances. Where mental health needs are not identified or not addressed, care cannot be genuinely person-centred. CQC inspectors look specifically at whether services recognise and respond to the full range of an individual’s needs, including emotional and psychological wellbeing.

CQC Regulation 10: Dignity and Respect requires that individuals are treated with dignity at all times. A care worker who responds to distress with a management strategy rather than a supportive, compassionate response is not meeting this standard. Understanding what distress looks like and why it is happening is a prerequisite for responding with dignity. CQC Regulation 12: Safe Care and Treatment requires providers to protect individuals from avoidable harm. Unrecognised or mismanaged mental health conditions in care settings can lead to escalating distress, safeguarding concerns, inappropriate use of restriction, and missed deterioration. All of these are avoidable where staff have the awareness and tools to respond well.

Mental Health, Dementia, and Learning Disability: Understanding the Full Picture

One of the most significant gaps this course addresses is the failure to recognise mental health when it presents alongside another primary diagnosis. A person with dementia who becomes tearful, withdrawn, or resistant to personal care may be experiencing depression. A person with a learning disability who becomes agitated, self-isolating, or disengaged may be experiencing anxiety. A resident who has always been sociable and who gradually stops joining activities may not simply be having a bad week.

These presentations are frequently attributed to the primary diagnosis or to behaviour, when the underlying cause is a mental health condition that is entirely treatable and entirely manageable with the right response. Staff who have been trained in dementia awareness and learning disability awareness but have never been shown how mental health intersects with both are not equipped to see the full picture.

This course builds that understanding directly, covering how common mental health conditions present in people who also have dementia, learning disabilities, or both, and what good, person-centred support looks like in practice. For services wanting to build this out further, our Dementia Awareness and Learning Disability Awareness courses cover the primary conditions in more depth.

What the Day Covers

Content is adapted to your service type, your client group, and the specific mental health challenges most relevant to your team. Topics covered include:

  • What mental health is in a care context: the full spectrum, and the assumptions and stigma that prevent appropriate responses
  • Common mental health conditions: depression, anxiety, stress, PTSD, and psychosis, and how each may present in a care environment
  • Mental health alongside other diagnoses: how conditions present differently when they co-occur with dementia, learning disabilities, or other conditions, and why the primary diagnosis must not become a barrier to recognising mental health needs
  • Signs and behavioural changes: recognising changes in behaviour, withdrawal, communication, and refusal of care, and understanding what these may indicate
  • Person-centred response: what good support looks like in practice versus what makes things worse
  • Care Certificate Standard 9: applying its principles in day-to-day care practice
  • Communication and mental health: adapting communication to support someone experiencing distress
  • Stigma and assumptions: how they shape responses in care settings and how to challenge them
  • Safeguarding and mental health: how mental health links to safeguarding, risk, and the duty to escalate concerns
  • Signposting and support pathways: internal routes, external services, and professional boundaries within the care worker role

Every course is also built to include your care plans, escalation routes, and signposting pathways as standard.

How the Course Is Delivered

This course is available face-to-face at your workplace or chosen venue, or live online via Zoom or Microsoft Teams for teams in multiple locations or with remote workers. Sessions are practical, discussion-based, and built around the real mental health situations care staff encounter in their working day. The aim is a genuine shift in how staff understand and respond to mental health, not another awareness session that gets forgotten by Friday.

Groups are capped at 15 to ensure every learner has space for the kind of honest discussion this topic generates. We can build content around your specific service type, including residential care, supported living, domiciliary care, and specialist services for people with dementia or learning disabilities, the co-occurring conditions and dual diagnosis presentations most common in your service, and your care planning processes, escalation routes, and signposting pathways. This course can also be combined with Dementia Awareness, Learning Disability Awareness, Adult Safeguarding Level 1 and 2, or Mental Capacity Act and DoLS for a joined-up programme.

Delivery includes:

  • Direct challenge of the assumptions that most commonly prevent staff from recognising mental health in people with dementia or learning disabilities
  • Scenario-based discussion covering the specific presentations most likely to arise in your service, including co-occurring conditions and dual diagnosis
  • Practical discussion of what good person-centred support looks like in real care environments and what gets in the way
  • Review of your organisation’s escalation routes, care planning processes, and signposting pathways where relevant

Care Certificate Standard 9 and This Course

Care Certificate Standard 9 (Awareness of Mental Health, Dementia and Learning Disability) requires all new care workers to demonstrate awareness of how these conditions affect individuals and how to respond appropriately within their role. This course covers the mental health element of Standard 9 in full, including the knowledge requirements around common conditions, signs and symptoms, communication, dignity and respect, and escalation. It can be used to support Care Certificate assessment for new starters and forms part of a structured induction programme.

For a complete guide to the Care Certificate, all 16 standards, and how Prima Cura Training supports organisations to deliver and assess it, visit our Care Certificate UK Guide.

Mental Health Awareness (Care Sector) or Mental Health Awareness (All Sectors)?

Both courses build the same core awareness, confidence, and signposting skills. The right choice depends on your sector and context.

Mental Health Awareness in Health and Social Care (this course) is built specifically around the clinical and regulatory context of health and social care, including how mental health presents alongside dementia, learning disability, and other care needs, and what genuinely person-centred support looks like in practice. It directly supports Care Certificate Standard 9 and CQC Regulations 9, 10, and 12.

Mental Health Awareness (All Sectors) is designed for all businesses across all sectors and addresses mental health from a general workplace wellbeing and employer legal duty perspective, including the HSE first aid needs assessment requirement. If you work outside health and social care, that course may be more appropriate.

We don’t make that determination for employers; the responsibility sits with you. But we do provide guidance throughout the enquiry process.

Certification and Validity

On completion, learners receive a CPD-Accredited Certificate of Achievement in Mental Health Awareness in Health and Social Care.

A refresher is recommended every 2 to 3 years, or sooner following significant changes to CQC guidance or NICE guidelines, following incidents where mental health was a factor, or where changes in the service user group or staff responsibilities mean existing training no longer reflects current practice. Our Dementia Awareness and Learning Disability Awareness courses work well alongside this one for services building a more complete person-centred care programme.

Why Organisations Book With Prima Cura

Most training providers arrive with a course. We arrive with yours.

Before the day, we gather information about your workplace: your incident reporting forms, your internal procedures, and the specific hazards your team actually faces. On the day, your trainer works that into every scenario, every discussion, every practical exercise. If your staff work in a care home, they’re not practising on hypothetical office workers. If your team are lone workers, that context shapes how the session runs.

It means the training lands. Not because it was well-delivered in a generic sense, but because it was relevant to the people in the room and the situations they’ll actually encounter.

A few other things that matter to the organisations that book with us:

  • 98.9% learner satisfaction across all Prima Cura courses
  • All trainers hold Enhanced DBS certificates and maintain ongoing CPD
  • We advise honestly on the qualification level at the enquiry stage. If a different course is a better fit for your workforce, we’ll say so before you book, not after

We respond to all enquiries within one working day.

Where We Deliver

We deliver in-house training at your workplace or chosen venue across Manchester, Greater Manchester, and the wider North West. We also deliver nationally across England, including North England, South England, London, and Surrey.

All sessions are led by experienced Prima Cura Training instructors. Groups are capped at 15 per trainer to protect the quality of hands-on learning.

Our associate network means we can deliver across England. You can meet the team on our Associates page.

FAQs

Does this course support Care Certificate Standard 9?

Yes. This course covers the mental health element of Care Certificate Standard 9 (Awareness of Mental Health, Dementia and Learning Disability) in full. It addresses the knowledge requirements around common conditions, presentations, communication, dignity, and escalation. For a complete overview of the Care Certificate, visit our Care Certificate UK Guide.

How does mental health link to dementia and learning disability in care settings?

Mental health conditions frequently co-occur with both dementia and learning disability and are often missed because the signs are attributed to the primary diagnosis. Depression is estimated to affect around 40 per cent of people living with dementia. Anxiety disorders are significantly more prevalent in people with learning disabilities than in the general population. This course covers these intersections directly, giving staff the tools to recognise mental health needs in the full context of the person’s care picture rather than only through the lens of their primary diagnosis.

How does this course relate to CQC inspections?

The course directly supports compliance with CQC Regulation 9: Person-Centred Care, Regulation 10: Dignity and Respect, and Regulation 12: Safe Care and Treatment. CQC inspectors look at whether staff recognise and respond to the full range of an individual’s needs, including psychological and emotional wellbeing, whether care plans reflect mental health needs, and whether responses to distress are safe, proportionate, and person-centred. This course addresses all of those areas. We deliver this training across Greater Manchester, the wider North West, and nationally.

Is this course suitable for staff supporting people with dementia?

Yes, and it is particularly valuable for those settings. The intersection of dementia and mental health, including depression, anxiety, and behavioural expressions of distress, is one of the areas most frequently addressed in delivery. Staff who understand this intersection are better placed to respond to the person rather than to the behaviour. We deliver this training across Greater Manchester, the wider North West, and nationally, and can build it around the specific dementia presentations most common in your service.

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Book or Enquire

Book your training or request a quote

Tell us your team size and your sector. We’ll come back with a quote, the right advice on qualification level, and a straight answer on whether this is the best course for your team.

We respond to all enquiries within one working day.

Our Commitment to Quality and Compliance

At Prima Cura Training, all courses reflect current UK guidance and best practice. All trainers are experienced professionals with relevant qualifications and ongoing CPD. Because many of the organisations we support work with vulnerable individuals, all trainers hold Enhanced DBS checks.

This course is reviewed against updates from the Care Quality Commission, Skills for Care, NICE, and current UK legislation, including the Health and Social Care Act 2008 (Regulated Activities) Regulations 2014 and the Care Act 2014. Course content aligns with NICE guideline NG222 (Depression in adults: treatment and management), NICE guideline CG113 (Generalised anxiety disorder and panic disorder in adults: management), NICE guideline NG53 (Transition between inpatient mental health settings and community or care home settings), NICE guideline CG123 (Common mental health disorders: identification and pathways to care), Care Certificate Standard 9, and Skills for Care mental health guidance.

You can read more on our Quality Assurance and Compliance page.

Reviewed by Stephanie Austin, Owner and Lead Trainer, Prima Cura Training | 25+ years in health and social care | 15+ years as a trainer | Last reviewed: June 2026 | Next review: June 2027

This page is for general guidance only and reflects current UK legislation, CQC guidance, NICE guidelines, and Skills for Care guidance as of the date of review. It does not constitute clinical, legal, or regulatory advice. Mental Health Awareness in Health and Social Care Training is a CPD-accredited awareness course and does not qualify learners to diagnose or treat mental health conditions or to provide clinical mental health intervention. Employers remain responsible for ensuring their care planning processes, staff training, and organisational policies reflect the mental health needs of the individuals they support and comply with all applicable legislation and CQC regulatory requirements. Where individuals require clinical mental health support, they should be referred to an appropriate healthcare professional.

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