Hello everyone! I’m Alicia and I am your current Welfare Officer for this academic year! 🌈
As some of you may know, it is University Mental Health Day today and I just wanted to take some time to share a little bit about my journey and how I became Welfare Officer here at Leeds Arts Union. During my second year of university, I became a Student Representative for my course. I really enjoyed being a spokesperson for the student body and participating in meetings where we could share your ideas on how to improve student experience. By attending them, it gave me a great sense of pride that I could help shape the university and how it looked for other students.
I wanted to take this opportunity further, so I decided to run for the role of Welfare Officer in the Student Elections last year. I chose the role of welfare because throughout my university experience I have overcome many personal obstacles that at the time seemed impossible to conquer. Eventually, with the right help and support, especially from the Student Welfare team here at the university, I was able to process and deal with my emotions through counselling. I am extremely proud of myself and how far I’ve come since embarking on this journey of healing and now I want to give back to students, by helping in any way that I possibly can.
With this in mind, I felt that I could bring a lot to this role because I have a huge level of empathy for students and wanted to represent them as a collective. As I understand how important mental health is and the ways in which it can impact your studies. In particular, with COVID-19 I acknowledge the physical, mental and emotional impacts that it has had on our well-being, which has left students feeling isolated and disengaged, with not only themselves but their course and peers also.
My aim for this year was to boost student’s overall well-being by providing various events, workshops and campaigns to bring students together and to encourage the conversation around mental health and how vital it is throughout university life.
Here are some things you can do to boost your mental health:
Spend more time outdoors
Reduce screen time
Catch up with a friend
Cook yourself a nice meal
Practice self-care
Student Minds Says..
We know it can sometimes be difficult to know where to begin to improve mental health on your campus, you might feel like you don't have the tools and resources to work with your university to create positive change.
This is why Student Minds worked with students to create the Student-Led Improvement Tool. This University Mental Health Day work through the Charter's principles of good practice and use the guide to help you:
identify what your university already does
identify what they need to work on
be able to monitor and measure ongoing progress towards a whole-university approach to mental health
There are lots of other ways to get involved too:
Join the online movement using #UniMentalHealthDay
Run an activity/campaign and add it to the map www.unimentalhealthday.co.uk/events
Download and share Student Minds' resources
Share your story and experiences www.studentmindsblog.co.uk
Fundraise to help support more students and university communities
Share the support available on Student Space www.studentspace.org.uk
For more information: www.unimentalhealthday.co.uk/getinvolved
You can also always use https://studentspace.org.uk/ to support your own mental health, head to their website to contact specialist support via text, email, webchat or phone.
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