Dr Clare Dickens MBE is the Director of Student Life and University Designated Safeguarding Lead at the University of Wolverhampton. In this blog, Dr. Dickens reflects on the successes of the Student Wellbeing Champions work at the university, and particularly how it served their student nurse population.
Giving Back Through the Power of Partnership
The University of Wolverhampton are about conclude our third successful year with our Student Wellbeing Champion Scheme. Over the academic year 2022-2023, the University of Wolverhampton partnered with the City of Wolverhampton Public Health Team to pilot an innovative Student Wellbeing Champion programme which has gone on to recruit students from an array of course backgrounds and is proudly well served by our student nurse population.
The programme provides training and education to students on public health issues, enabling them to deliver health information campaigns to hundreds of people in both the university, and wider community within the City of Wolverhampton. Alongside their studies, they deliver health and wellbeing activities and services aiming to improve health outcomes, reduce inequalities and promote self-care. These include belonging and community groups, mental health workshops, encouraging people to get outdoors and exercise.
Steering the changes they want to see
The Champions have steered many awareness events, as well as regular support offers such as bereavement support, a neuro diversity social group and walk and talk sessions, University Wellbeing Day, Orange Wolves (Domestic Violence), Period Dignity @WoV, Well @ Wolves, University Mental Health Day, Freshers + Student Belonging Survey, City Wide Lifestyle Survey Promotion and Sexual Violence & Sexual Assault Week.
39 new partnerships have been created between the university and local organisations, which did not exist prior to this scheme and are all thanks to these wonderful students who initiate and nurture these relationships, they really are our leaders of the future. New partnerships include Healthwatch, Black Country ICB, NHS time 2 talk service, Wolverhampton healthy minds, Samaritans, SUIT, west midlands police, Recovery Near you, Black country women’s aid, Aquarius, Cruse, Macmillan cancer support, Kaleidoscope, the late night safe haven, changing our lives, Telford MIND, Wolverhampton LGBT+, Aquarius, West Merica Police, ASAN, Kaleidoscope, citizens advice, Lotus housing and just talk service.
Impact and well-deserved recognition
Their community focused work supporting the City of Wolverhampton Public Health Team and City Strategy priorities has seen our wellbeing champions rightfully endorsed by Councillor Jasbir Jaspal, the City of Wolverhampton Council’s Cabinet Member for Public Health and Wellbeing, she said: “Our Student Wellbeing Champions are playing a vital role in tackling local health problems and improving the lives of people in the city.” Our partnership has also been featured in the City of Wolverhampton Annual Public Health Report.
The scheme is robustly evaluated, not only focusing on the impact of the activities our wellbeing champions have developed, but we also aim to capture and measure personal impact on them. Evaluation so far would suggest that because of involvement, confidence, social skills, and leadership skills have significantly improved (statistical analysis using a Paired Two Sample t-test), which are some of the key ingredients for better mental health now and in the future.
In the video below, you can hear from three of our Wellbeing Champions reflecting on their time within the scheme as they approached the end of their courses, to include Jen, a third-year mental health nursing student who has been involved in the scheme since its inception.
I have long held the belief in my professional and personal life, that when human beings get their heads together and agree on a common goal and ways to help and support each other, we can achieve wonderful things. At its core, this is what our Student Wellbeing Champion Scheme represents. We cannot ignore the positive impact such connections and interventions can have on our students’ sense of purpose, confidence and overall mental health. For nursing students in particular, we know their course journeys can be tough, we also know that to involve themselves with extracurricular activities and schemes can be a challenge owed to constraints on their time and indeed their own emotional resources. What our Student Wellbeing Champions at the University of Wolverhampton are demonstrating not only through their impact, but evaluation of their involvement on their own confidence and leadership skills, is that making such a decision to be involved can pay dividends for them as well as those they support.