Almost two-thirds (63%) of students indicated that their well-being and mental health had worsened since the start of the autumn term 2020 (Office for National Statistics). Poor wellbeing has a significant impact on student engagement, with students less likely to engage with their studies, in 2020 a published report found that a third of students who dropped out of university did so for mental health reasons.
In this current climate, it is imperative that every student gets the support they need from their university in a timely manner, so no student gets left behind. Following University Mental Health Day at the start of March, we’ve committed to dedicating a week to wellbeing including the Student Minds Step into Spring challenge to help to raise money and awareness for the organisation.
We have supported Student Minds over several years, not only do we value their incredible work we also see strong synergy with their mission ‘transforming the state of student mental health so that all in higher education can thrive’. (About – Student Minds)
Student Minds leads the way with student mental health awareness such as with the University Mental Health Day and helps to empower students and members of the university community to look after their own mental health, support others and create change. They do this through providing a range of resources to support wellbeing concerns from transitioning to university, looking after your wellbeing whilst studying abroad all the way through to ensuring students know where to get help during a family health crisis.
For universities, they help institutions set up peer support groups in the campus so students have another avenue of support with people who may have experienced similar situations, which they can understand and relate to. This understanding can then apply in a wider context, supporting innovative programs that are often research and clinically informed to make a difference.
With this in mind, Solutionpath staff are proud to be taking part in Student Minds ‘Step into Spring challenge’ this month to raise money for the charity and support their cause.
Taking on the Step into Spring challenge means setting yourself a target distance to travel during the month of March, so on the 22nd of March we will be doing this challenge collectively walking over 100km to raise money for the charity. Twelve Solutionpath staff are taking on the challenge and hope to beat the £600 raised last year taking on their ‘5k May’ challenge and their Student Mental Health Day challenge. Watch the video of last year’s challenge here.
Mental health can affect anyone at any time in their lives and the past two years has shown us how important it is to look after our wellbeing. Working closely with the education community over the past 9 years has shown how much wellbeing is valued by university staff and their students. There is a real passion to care for students and build a greater understanding of how this proactive university support makes a difference. At Solutionpath we are committed to helping universities with this commitment and seek to build tools to help in that change.
The very fact of being and feeling different is often a blocker to alerting others to your struggles and how people’s inexperience is often the reason for not seeing when someone needs help. We see many examples of how the simple act of reaching out can make such a profound change across our user community.
Richard Gascoigne, CEO of Solutionpath comments “Our mission at Solutionpath is to make every student successful is underpinned by our experience that student success in university relies of being part of that community and feeling like you belong. At Solutionpath we are data folk, technologists, compassionate ones, but techies all the same. Only with organisations that rise to the challenge of what it means to meaningfully participate can we see and change. At Solutionpath we are committed to help those that can be the agents of change as we seek to build tools to help in that change”.
Good luck with the Step into Spring challenge Team Solutionpath! #DataRockStars”
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We are very excited to be taking on the challenge on the 22nd of March in support of this brilliant charity, this excitement has only grown as Solutionpath has agreed to match fund the money raised by the team! Keep an eye out for our posts and progress on LinkedIn and Twitter this week and wish us all the best as we walk over 100km!
If you would like to support our fundraising efforts, you can find our JustGiving page here: Solutionpath Team is fundraising for Student Minds (justgiving.com)
Almost two-thirds (63%) of students indicated that their well-being and mental health had worsened since the start of the autumn term 2020 (Office for National Statistics). Poor wellbeing has a significant impact on student engagement, with students less likely to engage with their studies, in 2020 a published report found that a third of students […]
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