Introducing Steps to Student Wellbeing!

Hi! We?re Sue and Charlotte, Wellbeing Practitioners for the Steps to Student Wellbeing project from Valleys Steps.

This is a shiny new project that aims to work with students to develop wellbeing services for students – helping students to help themselves. Ultimately, the project is trying to reduce the number of students who need to access crisis services by listening to what students want and developing support that is easy to access. More broadly, we?d like to work towards building a positive open environment around mental health in colleges and universities in the RCT and Merthyr areas. 

Covid has put a bit of a spanner in the works for us, so we?ve been working really hard to create a student space online where you can access a whole range of things to help with wellbeing. Just some of the things to check out are:

• Wellbeing Boosters – We?ve recorded some of the sessions we?ve done so far on sleep, mindfulness, and worries around going back to / starting college or uni – you can watch whenever you like in the Wellbeing Boosters section, make sure to tell us what you think!

• Q&As and blogs – We have videos and blogs from students about their experiences and tips

• Resources and downloads – We?ve got loads of different stuff you can download in our Resources section, including journals, tools, audio tracks, and also a Quick Calm section with things that can help quickly if you?re feeling panicky or overwhelmed

How can I get involved? You can get involved in the project by volunteering as a Wellbeing Project Champion! This can be as much or as little as you?re able to do, and can include: letting us know what students want from services, helping us develop and pilot sessions, promoting the project, creating resources, and helping us to research and set up peer support.

Not got time to volunteer? No worries! We?ve got a quick form at the bottom of the webpage so you can let us know what you think – we?re really keen to hear from you! It would also be great if you could fill in the short feedback form after you watch a session to tell us what you liked, what could be better, and what else you would like to see.

Hopefully we?ll be able to come to campus soon (for students in the RCT and Merthyr areas), but for now keep checking back here for more exciting stuff online! ??