Staying cool…

Today I’m re-blogging Eddy & Mind Your Head - Student Led Mental Health work from Leeds.

mindyourheadleeds:

Freshers’ Week is over and as usual campus was absolutely buzzing. Free pizza, medieval swordsmen, a game called ’spot the gay’, someone to throw wet sponges at (sorry mate..), cheerleaders, token sweets and pens, a not so token hypnotising dog, it was all happening! The girls on the committee did a brilliant job of promoting the The Mind Matters Society and signing up new members on Wednesday. Along with this, one of my highlights was undoubtedly the Counselling Centre’s promotion on Thursday and Friday.

I’d had a phone call off one of the lovely Counselling Centre ladies a couple of weeks before saying that they were thinking of putting a bed in the freshers’ tent and needed someone to occupy it. At first I thought it sounded like some crazy idea that I would come up with, and that it might later be discarded for a standard stall and flyers. But when I turned up I was amazed to see a typical student bedroom complete with pizza boxes, cans of Carlsberg, random rubbish and…a traffic cone. How do these guys know us so well !? Next to the bed was a stall and flipchart asking students what advice they’d offer this student that was struggling. The bed was covered with slips of paper containing responses. These included sensible suggestions like “talk to a friend” and “go for a walk in the park”, and a few more unusual ones like “listen to Wham” (huh!?). Manning the stall was Nigel, Head of the Counselling Service, wearing a cool jeans and jacket combo, and cheery smile. Another member of the team, James, was complete with  trendy scarf. The whole thing worked brilliantly, and the team showed that they are not just a thoughtful, friendly group, but that they are in touch with the student life, and are willing to go the extra mile to show this (although don’t expect to see them out in Halo anytime soon !). They have an impressive list of workshops planned for this term too, which cover topics like getting settled into uni life, improving communication and relationship skills and getting a good night’s sleeping. You can read about these in the GIAG booklets found in the Union, or at the Counselling Service’s website: www.leeds.ac.uk/studentcounselling.

As I started writing this I thought about the impression our society gives off. And I remembered that one of the great strengths of student-led stuff comes from our unique position. We are students reaching out to other students, and no else can offer this peer to peer approach. Our power comes from being ourselves, standing shoulder to shoulder with every other student on campus, and being representative of them all. It comes from us not pretending to be an authority, or to be always right; and from steering clear of the restrictions and politics that exist elsewhere. Let’s stay cool. If we do this we can offer society something really special – an enthusiasm, creativity, free-spiritedness and quickness in taking action, that rarely exist elsewhere. If the cost is that we’re a bit sloppy, and occasionally get things wrong, then so be it.

Eddy, The Mind Matters Society (www.themindmatters.co.uk)