Mental Health at Work for Managers
Signature Course No. 295 — A Signature AI Socratic Coaching Course.
No experience needed — your coach starts where you are.
A New Kind of Learning
Socratic coaching, delivered by an agentic AI coach.
Not a course you watch. An AI coach you work with.
The Lighthouse Coach begins by discovering how you think about the subject, teaches what is missing, and gives you realistic practice before asking you to prove that you can use it. You may test out of concepts you already understand, while capstones turn the learning into a practical plan, decision, conversation, or other real-world result.
The curriculum is deliberately authored; the AI delivers it through coaching. It is not an AI randomly generating lessons.
A coach that teaches by asking — not by lecturing
The Lighthouse Coach is an AI Socratic coach built on Cognosco Learning's Mental Health at Work for Managers course, in the People, Culture & Engagement category. It does not play videos at you. It holds a conversation: it asks you a question, listens to your answer, names the misconception it hears, affirms what you got right, and asks the next question — the way a great coach works in the room.
Every manager will, sooner or later, manage someone who is struggling. Most managers meet that moment with one of two failures: they look away, because it feels private or not their business, until absence or crisis makes it undeniably their business — or they rush in as a rescuer, confidant and amateur counsellor, and end up carrying a secret they cannot act on. This course replaces both failures with a discipline of three moves: notice, talk, refer.
You learn the moves in order. Notice change early, against the person's own normal, in observable facts — never a label. Talk: a private conversation built on observation, care, and an open question, with the phrases that help and the phrases that must never be said rehearsed until they are the ones you reach for. Refer: a warm handover to the assistance programme, human resources, occupational health — and, at the sharp end, the crisis routes — never a leaflet and a shrug.
It works in two movements. First, Module 1 — Notice, Talk, Refer: The Manager's Three Moves — work through Concepts 1–9, finishing with The First Fortnight; then, Module 2 — Fair, Steady, and Lawful Over Time — work through Concepts 10–18, finishing with The Steady Quarter.
Both capstones produce real artifacts — the conversation and referral plan, a live case run end to end over one fortnight; and the steady support plan, a full quarter of return, standards, and team fairness held at once, written so a successor could pick it up cold.
The boundary is part of the course. A manager is a bridge to help, never the help itself. This course teaches no diagnosis and no counselling technique as treatment: listening here is workplace listening, not therapy in a manager's office, and no scenario places the manager in a clinician's seat. Because the stakes include safety, the crisis routes stand here in the book's own words: If someone may act on thoughts of harming themselves, do not leave them alone, do not promise secrecy, and get help now: in the United States, call or text 988 — the Suicide and Crisis Lifeline, staffed around the clock — or text HOME to 741741 to reach the Crisis Text Line; if anyone is in immediate danger, call 911. In the United Kingdom and Ireland, call the Samaritans free on 116 123, around the clock. In any other place, call your local emergency number.
The course is self-paced and always on — roughly 30 minutes per concept, about 9 hours in full, taken in as many sittings as you like. You can type your answers, or talk out loud: the Voice Coach speaks its questions and listens to your spoken replies. Learners who already know the material can test out concept by concept.
Mental Health at Work for Managers is part of The Lighthouse Signature Series — the online counterpart to the one-day, in-person learning Cognosco Learning has delivered since 2002.
Course Facts
One full concept, coached end to end — free: verify your email and we’ll send you a link to start.
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Diagnose → Learn & Practice → Prove → Capstone
Every learner moves through the same discipline a Cognosco instructor would insist on in the room.
Diagnose
The Coach starts where the course starts: with the role. Before any conversation is opened, settle what a bridge does and never does — notice, talk, refer, and never the fourth move — and the two sentences that keep you on your side of the line. Every concept opens with three questions that locate where you actually stand, and your answers shape how deeply the Coach works the concept with you. Everyone begins with Module 1 — no skipping the foundations you only think you have.
Learn & Practice
Work each concept in conversation with the Coach — spoken or written — then practice it against realistic situations until it holds up.
Prove
Every concept ends in proof: answer the check cold and demonstrate the skill. Know it already? Test out and take credit immediately.
Capstone
Finish with two capstones — The First Fortnight for Module 1 and The Steady Quarter for Module 2 — that pull the whole course together, and earn the certificate.
What You'll Learn
Three moves, in that order, every time. Noticing without talking is surveillance. Talking without referring is counselling by an amateur, however warm the intention. Referring without noticing first is a leaflet pressed on a stranger. The three moves are one discipline.
Module 1 builds the discipline. The role drawn exactly; change read in observable facts against the person's own normal; language, privacy, and the conversation's craft; the direct safety question and same-day action; referral as a warm handover; and follow-up that returns the relationship to work.
Module 2 holds it fairly over time. Adjustments inside your authority, standards on their own track, absence and phased return, refusals respected, the team's fairness protected without disclosure, factual notes, support for the manager, and the routine that installs all of it into an ordinary week.
And it holds its boundary throughout. Facts, not labels; work, not treatment. The person's inner life, history, and health belong to the person and to the professionals they choose — holding that line is what makes your help trustworthy.
What you will learn
- Hold the manager's role exactly: bridge, not clinician — notice, talk, refer — and state where the role ends in any situation
- Notice struggle early in observable workplace facts, and speak about those facts without labels, guesses, or diagnosis
- Open and hold the conversation: private place, right moment, words that help, listening in role, and the phrases that must never be said
- Act on safety the same day: ask directly when risk is in question, keep the person safe in the moment, and use crisis and escalation routes at full strength
- Connect people to real help — assistance programme, human resources, occupational health — with a warm handover, and follow up on the work, not the treatment
- Manage steadily afterwards: fair adjustments, standards held with care, absence and return, respected refusals, team privacy, factual notes, and support for yourself
Everything in the course
- All 18 concepts of Mental Health at Work for Managers, in 2 modules
- A starting-point check first — the Coach finds where you actually stand before teaching
- Learn, Practice, Prove for every concept — no passive video watching
- A test-out on every concept: prove you know it and move on
- The Voice Coach: talk with the Coach out loud — it speaks, listens, and replies
- A personal Learner Record of your work across the course
- Two capstone exercises: The First Fortnight and The Steady Quarter
- A printable session summary whenever you pause
- The Lighthouse Coach completion certificate (Signature Series)
- Your progress is saved as you go — stop anytime, resume where you left off
Built for the managers who notice first
First-line managers and supervisors — team leaders, shift leads, foremen and forewomen — who see their people daily and will be the first to notice change; and operations, plant, warehouse, and service managers who carry duty of care alongside output, rotas, and safety, and need language that works on a real shift.
Office and professional-team managers — including managers of hybrid and remote staff — whose noticing happens in meetings, messages, and missed deadlines rather than on a floor.
Managers who have already had one hard conversation go wrong — who promised secrecy they could not keep, said the comforting thing that landed as dismissal, or are still quietly carrying a case alone. This course assumes you manage at least one person, or are about to. It assumes no clinical background of any kind, and it will not give you one.
Prefer to learn live and in person? The same material anchors Cognosco's one-day programs — browse the in-person catalog.
Start with The First Fortnight
$195 — introductory price. One payment. No subscription, no password to manage.
Here is exactly what happens when you enroll:
- Pay securely with Stripe — you are taken straight into the course
- Create your learner profile and begin the Module 1 starting-point check
- Save the access key you are given — it restores your enrollment on any device
- Learn at your pace; your progress is stored in your browser on your device
For the full voice experience, use Chrome and allow the microphone when asked. Typing your answers works everywhere, all the time. Questions before you enroll? Email hello@cognoscolearning.com.
Before you enroll
What is a Socratic coaching session?
A conversation, not a video. Your coach asks a question; you answer — out loud by voice, or by typing — and the coach responds to what you said: naming the misconception it hears, affirming what you got right, and asking the next question. You advance only when you have mastered each concept, so a finished course means the learning held.
How long does it take — and how long do I have?
About 30 minutes per concept. Learn in sittings of any length; your progress is saved as you go. You have a full year from purchase to finish, and you can revisit and retake within that year.
What does the certificate verify?
That you completed every concept and both capstones of this course. Anyone can confirm a Cognosco certificate online — enter its certificate ID on our verification page.
What if it isn't for me — what are the refunds?
If you have not started, cancel for a full refund within seven days of purchase. Once you have started, there is no cash refund — stop before finishing and we credit the full amount you paid toward any other course in the library (credit valid one year from your original purchase). Once you complete the course, no refund or credit applies.
More Signature Courses are coming
Mental Health at Work for Managers is Signature Course No. 295. Leave your email and we'll send you news of future Signature Courses and Lighthouse updates as they are announced — nothing else.