Research Speaker Series: Creating communities of care for all who work or study in academia – A critical, collective, and pragmatic approach
Presenter: Dr. Petra Boynton
Hosted by Gwen Nguyen and Leva Lee, BCcampus
BCcampus webinar recorded December 10, 2024
Although understandings about mental health are ancient and varied, over the past three decades, conversations about wellbeing have grown. These stem from charities, healthcare, therapy, social/media, and more recently, from wellness and influencer cultures.
Simultaneously, while awareness of (some) mental illnesses has increased, barriers to accessing diagnoses and care have also grown. In many settings, including academia, mental health and wellbeing support is not always available, affordable, accessible, or appropriate.
The reasons for this shift are numerous and far bigger than the university where, over the past five years, the burgeoning discourse of “academic mental health” now includes awareness days, research of varying quality, vague and confused definitions, unclear boundaries around duties of care, a specific genre of self-help books, multiple interventions with varying theories and approaches, and the inevitable wellbeing webinar.
The backdrop to this is, of course, the systemic problems within academia that may cause, or worsen, danger or distress. Factors like climate change, pollution, the impact and legacy of the pandemic, political unrest, war, conflict and displacement, poverty, historical abuses, inequalities, and access barriers compound the problem.
For some these issues are acute, while for others the impact is minimal, with minoritized students and staff disproportionately affected. However, many approaches to addressing academic mental health adopt a ‘one size fits all’ model that consistently fails to meet the needs of diverse students, staff, or wider communities and is detached from wider systems of teaching, learning, research, or performing other labour within academic institutions.
Our session will review existing evidence, policies, protocols, manifestos, and concordats. Then, using pre-submitted participant questions, it will reflect on who is brought in, and left out, by existing discussions around academic mental health. This will be used to produce pragmatic, supportive, sensitive, and inclusive ideas allowing us to consider how we might integrate a community of care across our campuses, research, teaching, and pastoral provision.
This session aims to leave everyone feeling comforted, validated, and aware of different approaches to caring for oneself, others, and the wider environment.
Attachments: Transcript (PDF, Word), Slides (PDF), Notes (PDF, Word)
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