Delivering Sensitive Course Content by Embedding Self-Care Resources for Students in Learning Materials

The mental health and wellbeing of students is of upmost importance and it is becoming increasingly recognised that students at universities in the UK are experiencing more mental health problems such as anxiety and depression. Some estimate that up to 1 in 4 students may experience a mental health problem. In some Universities there has been an increase in students dropping out and in others, more worryingly there have been a number of student suicides. As such addressing the mental health and wellbeing of students is of importance. Within the Global Mental Health Masters, we discuss a number of topics (such as child abuse and neglect, torture, gender based violence, suicide and chaining), which may adversely affect student’s mental health and wellbeing. In recognition of this, we have embedded a number of self-care resources and activities within our learning materials. In this presentation we explore what self-care is and describe our experiences of embedding self-care activities within the learning materials of our taught modules. We present some provisional feedback from students on their views of these activities.