Did you know - 92% of students have feelings of mental distress during their time at university?

Rising fees, deadlines, living away from home, poor job prospects and financial difficulties are just some of the issues facing students. It is therefore unsurprising that so many students feel mental distress whilst studying.

The theme of World Mental Health day (10th October) at CCCU was all about raising awareness of mental health within the student population and building resilience within day to day life. New society, Christ Church Student Minds and myself hosted the event POSITIVI-TEA where we gave away free cups of tea and hot chocolate and asked students to write down one thing they were looking forward to this week. The event was very positive with a number of students glad to see mental health was being acknowledged as a major issue. You can see some photos from the event here.

Future Aims and Events  

Halloween - “It’s Not Scary Anymore” (TBC - October)

The halloween event will be held at the Lounge and will be based around breaking the ‘taboos’ of mental health and that it is no longer scary to talk. Mental Health charity, Mind’s ‘Time 2 Change’ pledge aims to end the stigma surrounding talking about mental health, and we will be asking students to sign this as part of our mental health campaign.

Stress Relief Welfare Fayre (TBC - December)

This event will lay out a number of resilience techniques as well as activities to help deal with stress. Please keep your eyes peeled for this as I am working on a very exciting announcement that may involve something cute, fluffy and rhymes with guppy.

University Mental Health Day - Thursday 2nd March 2017

This is another event later in the year to raise awareness of Mental Health specifically at Universities and promote the changes that have been made throughout the year. More details on this to follow later on.