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On our radar: Supporting student and staff mental wellbeing in enabling education
Abstract   Peer reviewed

On our radar: Supporting student and staff mental wellbeing in enabling education

Nicole Crawford, Marguerite Westacott, Helen Scobie, Angela Jones, Kate Hansen and Juliette Subramanim
Proceedings of the 2019 Equity Practitioners in Higher Education Australasia (EPHEA) and National Association of Enabling Educators in Australia (NAEEA) Biennial Conference, p.108
Equity Practitioners in Higher Education Australasia (EPHEA) and National Association of Enabling Educators in Australia (NAEEA) Biennial Conference: Enabling Excellence through Equity, 2019 (Wollongong, Australia, 24-Nov-2019–27-Nov-2019)
2019
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Abstract

Specialist Studies in Education
University students' mental health and psychological wellbeing are increasingly a concern of universities. In higher education institutions, we are on the cusp of cultural change with a shift from viewing the responsibility of student mental ill health solely with universities' counselling units to understanding it as "everyone's business" and as a "teaching and learning issue". Such a significant shift requires institution-wide, multi-layered approaches at the macro, meso and micro levels. This focus of this showcase presentation is on the type and nature of contributions that can be made at the micro and meso levels in the practice of teaching and support, in the context of pre-university enabling programs. Supporting student wellbeing is "on our radar" in enabling education, in response to the needs of enabling students, which are typically complex and diverse. Given the emotional labour demands experienced by enabling educators, supporting staff wellbeing is also "on our radar". The presenters are members of the National Association of Enabling Educators of Australia (NAEEA) Special Interest Group (SIG) on Mental Health. They will draw from their experiences at the meso (e.g. course design) and micro (e.g. the design of teaching and learning materials for lectures and tutorials) levels in five enabling programs at five universities in Australia. The presenters will describe an initiative or strategy to support student and staff wellbeing. They range from the meso - embedding proactive mental health and wellbeing pedagogy - to the micro - implementing a growth-mindset approach through evidence-based research articles in an academic writing unit. They also included raising awareness amongst enabling educators of student mental health challenges; and utilising opportunities to embed wellbeing psycho education within generalist support introductions and within course content when opportunities arise. These initiatives and strategies can be adapted for other enabling and foundation/bridging courses, and in other teaching and learning contexts, such as first-year in higher education.

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