On Thursday 4 March, the University of Westminster held a series of events focused on mental health support and wellbeing to mark University Mental Health Day.
The national University Mental Health Day campaign, run by Student Minds, is designed to shine a spotlight on student mental health and help to encourage conversations, raise awareness and break the stigma surrounding mental health.
The University is running a wide range of talks and workshops across the whole of March, which started with Look After Your Mate Training sessions on March 2-4. Run by the University of Westminster’s Students’ Union (UWSU), these workshops aim to help students support themselves and others with mental health training, including practical tips, how to sport warning signs and the resources available for support.
The University of Westminster Wellbeing team is also running Westminster Wellbeing Webinars throughout the month, including an online webinar on 3 March for students about how to support their wellbeing and manage feelings of anxiety. It looked at how anxiety affects people in different ways, the resources available and strategies to manage it. Other wellbeing webinars that will take place throughout the month will cover a range of topics including managing worry during the pandemic, STI awareness, consent and how to improve sleep problems.
Talking about the sessions, Anne-Marie Joyes, Wellbeing Adviser at the University of Westminster, said: “These Wellbeing Webinar sessions are important to provide students with information to manage their own wellbeing and give them tools to help them combat and manage their common symptoms and behaviours related to poor wellbeing, such as poor sleep hygiene and worrying about the pandemic.
“Through these sessions, we hope to to increase mental health literacy and resilience across the Westminster community and tackle some of the stigma around reaching out for support and create a safe place to discuss difficult topics, such as consent and STI awareness.”
On 31 March, Dr Kathryn Waddington will also be running a panel discussion about compassion and mental health, where the panel will explore how students and staff experience compassion, as well as how universities can make mental health a university-wide priority. They will also discuss how this approach to compassion shaped her new publication, titled 'Towards the Compassionate University'.
Laura Culshaw, PhD researcher at the University of Westminster, developed the website CHERISH alongside Westminster researchers in the department of Psychology to provide resources for those supporting university students who self-harm. Dr Jo Birkett, Lecturer in Psychology, recently wrote a blog post for the CHERISH website, highlighting the importance of finding connection through peer support.
Talking about University Mental Health Day, Laura said: “This week we have seen the important recognition of University Mental Health, and self-harm with self-injury awareness day earlier this week. It is vital that we continue to support student wellbeing, particularly at a time when many of us are limited to life in a virtual world. Some students may be experiencing personal difficulties, and others may be providing support for fellow students and friends. We hope that CHERISH will be a useful resource for those individuals.”
Other events happening across the month include a student-run event titled ‘The Self-Love Factory’ on 19 March, which includes a healthy food class, dance workshop, fitness class and a talk about the issue of body shaming on social media.
Find out more about Westminster’s University Mental Health Day events.
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