Counting on U

Embark on your Counting on U journey now.

What is Counting on U and why is it important for your practice?

This 6-week interactive online training course equips participants with the tools and skills to build trust and better support colleagues and clients facing mental health issues.

have repeatedly confirmed the strong links between financial distress and mental ill-health.

Deakin Business School’s Counting on U program was created, in 2020, in response to this growing body of evidence. Designed in collaboration with industry partners, CoU is an evidence-backed training program for business finance professionals across Australia and New Zealand looking to develop the skills to build long-term, trusting relationships, navigate difficult client or customer conversations and look after themselves whilst supporting their clients and colleagues.

Partnering with HumanEx, the project delivered training to 160+ participants over 100 training and one-on-one coaching sessions.

Registration

Choose from the following

Course outline

What you’ll learn

RBT

The client Relationship Building Training (RBT) module provides participants with a useful framework to identify and refine interpersonal skills needed to have empathetic, often difficult, conversations about mental health and financial wellbeing.

Some of the difficult conversations explored include deep-diving into underlying issues, handling verbal aggression, and handling upset or distressed clients. The overall goal of RBT is to help you get even better at developing longer-term, trusting and mutually beneficial relationships with your clients.

Learning outcomes:

Improve knowledge of how to build trust with clients.
Develop the skills required to have conversations with clients. experiencing financial and psychological distress and/or uncover underlying issues.
Improve self-awareness to better support clients.
Increase self-care skills.

MHFA™

The Mental Health First Aid® (MHFA™) module teaches participants how to identify and provide support to those with the most common mental health conditions until they are able to seek professional help.

Learning outcomes:

Improve knowledge of mental health conditions, their treatments and appropriate first aid strategies.
Improve confidence in providing first aid to a person experiencing a mental health condition.
Decrease stigmatising attitudes.
Increase the amount and type of support provided to others.

Booster

The Booster further consolidates these skills by giving participants a chance to debrief with a trained expert, practice more scenarios and activities, and learn from each other through sharing of knowledge and experiences.

Professional endorsements

Upon successful course completion, participants will receive MHFA™ digital accreditation (valid for three years and recognised globally) and an email acknowledging course completion, which participants can use when submitting for CPD points*. Participants also receive a 0.5 Deakin unspecified course credit towards Recognition of Prior Learning (RPL) into a Faculty of Business & Law post-graduate degree, including the Deakin MBA.

* Members of Chartered Accountants Australia New Zealand, Association of Chartered Certified Accountants, CPA Australia; members and Deakin alumni also receive a discount on the program fee.

Client Testimonials

Hear what some of our previous clients have had to say

I undertook last years CoU MHFA™ course and found it very worthwhile. I thank the team for the great resources and sessions that we had together and recommend others to take up this course.

Carmel Veitch | Chief Financial Officer New Zealand Fish and Game Council

An amazing course and I feel more confident now to recognise mental health issues. It was well presented and informative and I am so glad I have completed the course thank you!

CoU Alumni participant

This course is more than I ever expected, and I believe would be an asset to all SMEs in NZ. Really couldn't think more highly of this course.

CoU Alumni participant

I think anyone who is a manager of staff should undertake this course. It’s great to raise awareness and very topical in this day and age.

CoU Alumni participant

This course is very valuable, and I think all employees would benefit having it part of their Health, Safety and Wellbeing programme.

CoU Alumni participant

This has helped me consolidate ways forward with clients and in everyday life situations particularly around difficult discussions. It has also given me opportunity to practice.

CoU Alumni participant

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Instructor Testimonial

The power of the COU programme is that it is a wrap around course, not only providing knowledge & learning around identifying the signs of possible mental health challenges, but more importantly providing the tools and confidence to have meaningful conversations with people about how they are doing, and supporting them to get the help they need. A key skill covered is active listening, something which is critical to ensuring that we hold space for others and can fully understand what is going on for them. The opportunity to practice this, and other key skills, in a safe environment, discussing and sharing within your group is critical to building confidence to enable participants to put their learning into action straightaway and a make difference.

Lindsay Kernohan | Qualified MHFA™ Instructor | HumanEx

Complete your registration now

Choose from our individual option or a custom-built CoU for businesses and organisations.

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Learn more about the Counting on U program

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