Edge Hill’s Tackling the Blues programme, delivered in partnership with Everton in the Community and Tate Liverpool, is marking University Mental Health Day on Thursday 4th March by offering a range of free mental health activities for students.
Tackling the Blues mentors will be delivering bitesize sessions on various mental health themes throughout the afternoon, including activities on how to boost your mood and address loneliness, coping with anxiety and frustration, and self-care sessions to support and improve wellbeing.
More than 250 students will be given the opportunity to take part in Chasing the Stigma’s Ambassadors of Hope mental health training, which enables people to talk about mental health and illness, what to do in a mental health emergency and how to effectively find help and signpost using its free Hub of Hope app.
Supported by funding from the Office for Students, Research England and the Premier League Charitable Fund, Tackling the Blues is a sport and arts-based programme delivered in local schools across Merseyside, Sefton and Lancashire.
Forty-eight student mentors from Edge Hill’s Department of Sport and Physical Activity and Faculty of Education are working to deliver this programme alongside staff from all three partner organisations.
Dr Helen O’Keeffe and Professor Andy Smith who lead the Tackling the Blues programme, said: “We are delighted to be in a position to offer Edge Hill students the opportunity to benefit from the expertise within the Tackling the Blues team. It will be a day where we hope students across the University can take some time to consider this important aspect of their personal wellbeing in the middle of these particularly challenging times.”
Other virtual activities provided on the day will include mindfulness meditation and drawing, a mental health quiz, workout challenge, tips on how to improve self-care, and a virtual mental health workshop by State of Mind Sport on professional athletes’ and officials’ experiences and management of mental health and wellbeing.
Tackling the Blues has been running since 2015 with funding from the Premier League Charitable Fund, and in 2020 significant additional funding was received from the Office for Students and Research England to:
- Provide new evidence on innovative ways of engaging students in knowledge exchange through an expanded version of Tackling the Blues which focuses on the promotion of mental health through sport and the arts in education
- To provide opportunities for more students to become involved in KE activities which improve their knowledge, understanding and experiences of mental health in education in local communities
- To develop a transferable student-focused model of KE which can be implemented and scaled up in other HE institutions
- To contribute positively to the Liverpool City Region and Lancashire agenda of improving the mental health and wellbeing of children and young people
