We’re living through strange and uncertain times, and it can feel hard to reach out when you need support. As your College Wellbeing Team, we want to make it easy for you to access support when you need it. We know that speaking to us by email is not the same as speaking to us in person. That’s why we’re launching a range of initiatives that we hope will bring you some familiarity and reassurance at a time when we we’re not able to offer our usual level of service.

As a starter, we’ll be introducing the Wellbeing Weekly email. We’ll be sharing your student stories of self-care and how you’ve been coping with Lockdown Life. We’ll be sharing everything from our finest lockdown recipes to tips for working at home. We’ll also be signposting to support services that you might find useful during this time.

We’ll be bringing you the “Give It A Rest” Podcast, which has been put together by your College Wellbeing Team. We’ll be chatting about the impact Coronavirus has had on University life, and a guided tour of the University processes that might be able to help you. It can be daunting navigating the Extenuating Circumstances process, so we’ll be sharing examples of some of the most common circumstances that students share with us. We’ll also be chatting to some guests from across the University to see how they can support you through your time at University. We’re really looking forward to bringing you some guided meditations too and looking at ways in which creativity can help with your Wellbeing.

As well as providing a written version of the podcast, we hope this blog will serve as a platform for you to become familiar with the College Wellbeing Team. We’ll share with you some of our hints and tips for surviving lockdown life, and how we’re looking after our own Wellbeing. We want to hear your tips and stories too, so let us know what’s been helping you get through lockdown.

We’ll also be doing some Q&A sessions, and we’d love for you to be involved. Whether you’re a RAP student who regularly engages with us, or perhaps everything is going swimmingly and you’ve not needed to use the service, we want to answer your questions. Please get in touch if you’d like to be a part of this feature. And of course if you have any feedback on any of our new content, then let us know!

We know it’s a challenging time, so now feels like a good opportunity to remind you of how to get in touch with us:

BBS Wellbeing: bbs.wellbeing@contacts.bham.ac.uk
BBS Distance Learning Wellbeing: bbs.dl-wellbeing@contacts.bham.ac.uk
Education Wellbeing: soe.wellbeing@contacts.bham.ac.uk
Gov Wellbeing: gov.wellbeing@contacts.bham.ac.uk
MBA Wellbeing: bbs.mba-wellbeing@contacts.bham.ac.uk
SP Wellbeing: sosp.wellbeing@contacts.bham.ac.uk