New mental health projects happening in Suffolk

Regional mental health organisation Student Life has been busy over the course of the past few months with many mental health projects in the pipeline.

“It’s a very exciting time here at Student Life” Heather-Mae Cutts, the Mental Health Development Lead at Student Life confirmed. “I am currently developing a new leaflet containing all of our existing and new mental health projects happening at Student Life. It is a great hand out to people interested in what we have to offer” Heather said.

Recently, Heather confirmed as well that Student Life has finished 2 days filming at Canterbury College for the remake of their mental health awareness film “Out of the Dark & Into the Light”. The film is a remake of the original film released in 2018 focusing on 5 young people sharing their experiences of mental ill health. Student Life now has 6 new brave young people to share their experiences. “The aim is to break stigma surrounding mental health. We will show this film when doing our onboarding presentation in schools.”

Filming doesn’t stop there for Student Life as Heather goes on to say. “Student Life are also working on another filming project in collaboration with Public Health England.” The film looks to highlight how young people can continue to keep safe whilst restrictions surrounding the pandemic are lifting. “The students so far love the idea and so do Public Health England. We’re taking a unique spin on this film and aiming to create something young people can actually relate to.”

Student Life’s Mental Health Project Co-ordinator, Pippa Pogson described “Over the last few months, we have made a lot of progress with our bespoke RSHE training project. The project, that will be delivered as part of the RSHE curriculum to years 10 and 11, is in its final stages”. The course consists of six sessions. The first four are centered around mental health, covering what mental health is, the mental health continuum and mental ill health such as Anxiety and Depression. The fifth session, which has been developed with Public Health England, focuses on remaining safe and aware of Coronavirus even as restrictions in the UK ease. Finally, session six aims to increase young people’s understanding of brain processing, including the threat response, and explore how this understanding can be used to improve an individual’s wellbeing. “We will begin getting feedback from small steering groups of young people over the upcoming months” continued Pippa, “before beginning to Pilot in Schools in September. We already have a large number of schools lined up for the pilot”.

The charity is also moving forward with some new mental health projects that will provide support and advice to young people. “We have begun work on an exciting collaboration with Samaritans, which will be aimed at University Students” described Pippa. “Secondly, we are working with online mental wellbeing community Kooth. Kooth provide free, safe anonymous support to young people through their online community. It’s fantastic to have so many different, important projects in development” said Pippa. “I am excited to share more about our developments over the next few months”. 

To find out more information please visit www.studentlife.org.uk