Student Minds SUs

What is Student Minds SUs?

Student Minds SUs is a community designed to empower you and your students’ union to become leaders in mental health.

Co-created with 11 partner SUs, the programme supports students’ unions to create cultural change and promote positive mental health within their own organisations, their university and wider communities.

The community centred programme has a focus on peer to peer learning and knowledge sharing. It is designed to be responsive to the needs of our community members and focuses on creating cultural change and achieving a whole union approach to mental health and wellbeing.

Our Student Minds SUs Community Members benefit from:

• Access to the Mentally Healthy SUs Framework and it’s 10 good practice principles which outlines how SUs can create a whole-union approach to mental health and wellbeing.
  
• Access to our digital community platform to connect with other members, ask questions and share resources and ideas.
  
• Access for staff and sabbatical officers across the union to our network events  aim to bring together members to share learning, approaches and good practice around each principle in the Framework.
  
•  Connecting with the Student Minds Sector Improvement team three times a year to reflect on your progress towards the Mentally Healthy SUs Framework. 
  
• Regular policy briefings and insights from our national research, listening to student needs/the sector and programmes such as the University Mental Health Charter to inform your activities.
  
• Opportunities for lead staff to come together regularly to share updates and challenges that you're having and a chance to work with the rest of the community to problem solve and generate ideas. 
  
• Access to a range of tailored training and support opportunities, such as an appraisal and recommendations report on their whole-organisation approach to mental health and discounted access to our peer support train-the-trainer courses.
  

Our Community Members:

• ​​Beds SU - University of Bedfordshire Students’ Union
• Brunel Students
• Bucks Students' Union
• Hertfordshire Students' Union
• Hull University Students' Union
• Leeds Beckett Students' Union
• Queen's University Belfast Students' Union
• Reading University Students' Union
• Royal Welsh Students' Union
• Students' Union UCL
• Swansea University Students' Union
• Union of Kingston Students
• University of Huddersfield Students' Union
• University of Plymouth Students' Union
• University of Portsmouth Students' Union
• University of Westminster Students' Union
• University of York Students' Union​

We have closed recruitment for this year's cohort, sign up to our newsletter  or email susupport@studentminds.org.uk for more information. 

“Student Minds’ Mental Healthy  SUs Framework is a fantastic opportunity for us to carry out a ‘self-check’ on what we do as a students’ union already to support mental health and wellbeing as well as areas to focus on going forwards. We know that our activity is really proactive and supports our members and staff to a high standard. By using the framework we are able to identify any gaps in our offer to ensure that we are doing our absolute best for our staff and students to promote and encourage positive mental health and wellbeing”
​Natasha Neal, Vice President Education and Welfare at Bucks SU

The Student Minds SUs programme has been fundamental in changing the Union's approach and strategy in supporting student mental health through the flexible in house support streams which provide incredible value for money and impact. The network days attended by staff members have helped to refocus what we do and how we do it and start to think differently about how we support our members. The ability to help shape the programme has also acted as a development opportunity and has ensured the programme is delivering on the needs of the collective Unions in the programme”
​Michael Wigg, CEO at Westminster SU

Access the Digital Community