News

On 3 February, University of Sussex students participated in Now and Beyond, a new mental health and wellbeing festival for schools. As part of the Situate project and in collaboration with the Mental Health Foundation, two Sussex students recruited through the Connector programme ran workshops for sixth form students.  

In total the undergraduate students delivered four workshops which aimed to raise awareness and open up conversations about the potential challenges that young people face when they leave school or college, how to deal with those challenges and how to take care of their mental health. 

Professor Jeremy Niven, Situate project lead, said: “We've spent a long time working with students at Sussex to co-create a series of peer-to-peer workshops that help with the transition into university. As part of the rollout of the workshops, two of our students have delivered the first workshop in the series as a 'taster' so that we can prepare to deliver the full workshop series in the Spring 2021.” 

Ani Chaudury, first-year Strategy and Marketing student and one of the peer trainers, said: “The students that we delivered the workshop to were amazing and had great insights into mental health. I thoroughly enjoyed running this workshop as for me it was a great way to develop my own mental health coping strategies and the Mental Health Foundation were extremely supportive throughout the workshop.” 

Violeta Lambies-Careras, who is in the second year of her Media and Film degree, added: “I am incredibly grateful to have been able to give these presentations. I'm really passionate about mental health and having the opportunity to deliver these presentations was amazing!” 

Lauren McConkey, Project Manager at the Mental Health Foundation, said: “It was an absolute pleasure to work with Sussex students on this project. They brought the content to life and were able to share their own knowledge and wisdom on what can be a really difficult time for some students. It was a really exciting start to the delivery of Situate sessions!” 

The Situate project team is currently recruiting peer trainers. First-year undergraduates at Sussex will be able to register to attend the workshops on the Situate webpages by mid-March, so keep an eye out for more information.