(Save The Date) The Blind Spot of Higher Education: Mental Health of Students

The European Students’ Union (ESU), The European Federation of Psychology Students’ Associations (EFPSA),  The International Federation of Medical Students Associations (IFMSA) and Youth Health Organization (YHO) are joining for the first time

  to mark World Mental Health Day on the 10th October with online event

“THE BLIND SPOT OF HIGHER EDUCATION: MENTAL HEALTH OF STUDENTS”

“Overlooked and undervalued, students included?”

Online event, 10th October 2020

For this year’s World Mental Health Day, four international student organisations have decided to work together and observe this day with a special online event. 

Through our work, we acknowledge the ever-growing need to start addressing the mental health of students on multiple levels through active student involvement and advocacy. Whilst this area has been marginalised by stakeholders and students themselves in the past, we believe the time is ripe to shine a spotlight on this substantial issue. It has been shown that mental health issues are rising amongst student and larger societal populations, however, deep-rooted stigmas regarding mental health is still a huge issue that is harming the well-being of students and lowering higher education completion rates. We see the higher education environment as a great entry route to begin actively working on reducing stigma around mental health, helping students to successfully fulfill their academic goals through a flexible and inclusive academic setting. In sum, we believe that each person is part of a wider system, which should become more aware of the importance of mental health provision. Society as a whole needs to start promoting and supporting the mental health of students and ultimately seek systemic changes to enable better mental health outcomes.

This is why we kindly invite you to join us on this special event named “The blind spot of higher education: Mental health of students”, which is going to run as follows; 

Saturday, 10th October, 2 panels;

• 10.00 – 11.30 CET, “Integration of mental health into higher education: is it really necessary and how can it be made a reality?”, online platform TBC;

The main aim of the first session is to inform all stakeholders, from global, regional and national leaders to Higher educational institutions, student representatives and students themselves about the need and great importance to fully implement mental health into higher education. We are going to be discovering what mental health in a university setting really means, what kind of policies we should establish that will bring desired changes, how to actively destigmatise the environment and positively impact students and staff at universities. In addition, the discussion will also focus on EU policies, mental health friendly curricula and student participation. 

• 16.00 – 17.30 CET, “How to talk about mental health: crash course edition”, online platform TBC.

This session is designed in a more practical way, offering students tools and hacks on how to approach and talk about mental health in real life. The main aim of this session is to raise awareness around communication in mental health and to promote productive discourse among youth. Stigma and discrimination are the two biggest obstacles that prevent us about opening up about this topic, and the reasons why seems to be largely connected to communication. Throughout this session, we will seek to change public perceptions by bringing the answers to the questions why, how, when, and with whom you can talk about  mental health related topics closer to you! 

From 12th to 30th October; 10 workshops on different mental health related topics

These workshops will be designed specially for students and will be occurring in smaller groups, up to 20 people. Themes of the workshops will be different, offering students an amazing opportunity to learn new tools and trick to successfully combat any stressful events during studying and in everyday life. Some of the workshops will be focusing more on systematic changes as well. To name few; “How to cope with pandemic”, “Mental health in the media”, “Mental health in a LGBT+ community”, “Wellbeing during exam period”, “Preventing burnout”,…. Stay tuned for more info and dates! 🙂

Registration

Feel free to register on this link.

Join us for this event and help spread the awareness of mental health! 

* We will be announcing the panellists in the following days.

** Public panels and workshops are free of charge, registration will be required, more information in the following days. Stay tuned for more information! 

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The European Students’ Union (ESU) is the umbrella organisation of 46 National Unions of Students (NUS) from 40 countries. The aim of ESU is to represent and promote the educational, social, economic and cultural interests of students at the European level towards all relevant bodies and in particular the European Union, Bologna Follow Up Group, Council of Europe and UNESCO. Through its members, ESU represents almost 20 million students in Europe. 

The European Federation of Psychology Students’ Associations (EFPSA) represents a highly diverse network of psychology students. The Federation currently consists of 36 psychology Member Organisations and organises events all around Europe. Its main aim is to provide psychology students with unique and exciting opportunities for academic, professional and personal development. EFPSA wants to contribute to the improvement of psychology; have a positive impact on society and support scientific and social interaction between psychology students, academics and professionals.

The International Federation of Medical Students Associations (IFMSA) represents 1.3 million medical students from 145 member organisations (48 of them in the European Region) from 134 countries across the world. IFMSA aims to bring medical students together to exchange, discuss and initiate projects to create a healthier world and advocate for pressing global issues pertaining to health-related matters.

Youth Health Organization is one of the leading organizations that empowers young people to work on Youth Health. We teach, train, connect and financially support youth from different backgrounds to actively participate in prevention programmes, research, policy and leadership on Youth Health.