10-16 May was Mental Health Awareness Week, and it was centred around the theme of nature. We delivered a range of insightful activities for both our staff and students. Here’s a summary of what we got up to during the week.
Nature based activities
We hosted a range of environmental activities, from fun nature and wildlife quizzes (used in class and in staff meetings), to nature discovery challenges and litter picking, to help clean up the environment.
It was extremely positive to see so many students and staff getting involved. They used Kaplan’s social media channels to let us know what they’d been up to and sent through lots of wonderful nature photos to the Wellbeing team.
Webinars
We created a new video interview series for students focusing on a range of mental health topics. The first one focused on “Breaking the Taboo” - it can be found, with other mental health videos, on our YouTube channel.
Plus, 106 students joined the first in a series of live seminars named Life After Lockdown ‘How to strengthen our mental fitness’ with expert mental health coach Ross McWilliam of Mindset Pro.
We will be running further seminars in June and July, so book your place on them today.
Wellbeing survey
Students also received a dedicated wellbeing survey, to gain a greater insight into how they were feeling at the moment. In the annual survey, 45% of students felt that their mental health had declined in the past year, so we wanted to know how they were feeling about returning to work after the pandemic. Most importantly, however, we want to know whether Kaplan can support them more.
So far, we’ve had a notable 200 responses which gives us some useful insight. We’ll analyse the results as soon as the survey closes and release a piece on our findings.
Finally
We sent out some surprise seeds for staff to plant in their gardens or window boxes to bring a little wildflower colour to their world. Growing new plant life, we feel, is at the heart of this year’s Wellbeing theme and also a therapeutic and positive thing to do. We were thrilled to see so many photos of staff enjoying their day and planting their seeds.
Need more information?
If you or your students need some more advice about mental health and looking after yourselves during this tough time, check out our guidance on the student wellbeing page. Alternatively, have a read of our well-being blogs or get in touch with us for more support.