Mental Health Awareness Week 2021
Both universities supported mental health awareness week (10-16th May) to get the university communities focusing on achieving good mental health.
This years theme was nature. Nature has been shown to have a significant positive impact on our mental health and wellbeing by reducing stress, improving mood, and boosting creativity. This may explain recent research findings that 45% of people used moving outside as a strategy to cope with the mental health impact of the pandemic.
Across the universities we promoted different ways students could connect with nature to look after their mental wellbeing from mindfully moving outside, sitting by a window, gardening, or getting a plant to bring nature inside!
Staffordshire University created a checklist for ways to connect with nature, and over at Keele we shared a gratitude scavenger hunt.
We also promoted messages around the key themes of the start to success mental health campaign and #TalkSuicide campaign.
One focus was on reducing isolation, and encouraging members of the community to connect with others in nature as a key way to wellbeing.
A second focus was on stigma where we used the recent 'Being Well, Doing Well' findings to support normalising mental health problems. At Staffs, a series of posters were created that highlighted some of the findings of the survey from across many aspects of wellbeing (e.g. mental health, financial wellbeing, academic performance etc.) and stated the universities commitment to supporting any students who need it. A similar approach was taken at Keele where four headlines were selected ‘you are not alone’, ‘you are supported’, ‘you belong’ and ‘you can talk to us’. Each headline was supported by the results of the Alterline survey and students signposted to Student Services.
Over at the Student Unions’ there were also several initiatives implemented. At Keele, the Welfare Officer, Miles, launched a ‘Wild but Grounded’ art and photo competition. At Staffs, elected officers, Connor, Carter & Anth created a video that shared their top tips to boost mental health. Watch it here: https://bit.ly/3yfiHFf
