All Things Mental Health

How can higher education move beyond buzzwords to take action that is truly useful and meaningful for students?

In Episode 6 of Rethinking University Mental Health, host Anna Bailie and Dr. Gareth Hughes explore how universities can ensure their approaches to student wellbeing are genuine, impactful, and student-led.

Sophie Churchill, from Birkbeck University of London delves into how university can be both wonderful and challenging and the undeniable connection between student engagement and wellbeing and the difficulties in reflecting diversity in student voice in research. 

Roshan Galvaan, from the University of Cape Town, explores how campus culture influences a sense of belonging during periods of student activism and institutional challenges. Roshan also considers the practice of play in student life and how student-led creative approaches and language help students connect with their identities without leaving their ‘self’ behind on campus.

Dr Michael Priestley, Durham University explores how collaborative learning can support student connection when integrated effectively. Anna and Michael reflect on how co-production is about having the people affected by the change in the room, working meaningfully with them to create solutions together.

Jialin (Annie) Yang, a second-year PhD researcher at King’s College London, shares findings from a systematic review of Chinese students’ mental health and wellbeing, exploring how culture, language, friendship, and prosperity shape university life in ways that can differ from the UK's traditionally individualistic view of mental health.

Moving beyond the buzzwords and token gestures, universities can ensure their approaches are meaningful and shaped by the students they affect. This episode explores how.

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Our latest episode explores the interconnected relationship between student wellbeing, belonging and the wider social and economic pressures shaping university life. 

Juliet Foster, and Tiffany Luxford, introduce a series of lightning talks bringing together diverse perspectives on the challenges and opportunities facing student mental health.

Dr Michael Priestley examines how the physical university environment can create opportunities for connection and belonging, particularly for first-year students. Drawing on research with students, he explores how the design and accessibility of social and natural spaces communicate who belongs and who is valued, and how co-production can help universities create more inclusive environments.

Dom Smithies from Student Minds explores how the cost-of-living crisis is shaping students’ experiences, the mental health consequences of financial insecurity and the stigma that can prevent students from accessing support. 

King’s student and our artist for this series, Jordan Vaz reflects on their experiences of university life and the challenges of finding belonging. They explore the relationship between student wellbeing and belonging, the factors that shape these experiences, and why students from diverse backgrounds may feel less connected to university life. Talking all things educational achievement, hustle culture and the importance of student involvement in shaping university communities.

Highlighting the complex relationships between physical environments, financial security, identity and mental health. This episode moves beyond individualised approaches to wellbeing and addresses the wider conditions that shape students’ experiences.

Content note: This episode includes reference to self-harm (15:00) and child suicide at (21:30). Please take care when listening.

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Our latest episode explores the relationship between research and practice in student mental health, and how universities can better support students through the challenges of transition, neurodivergence, and loneliness. Alongside these topics, we take a thoughtful look at efforts to prevent sexual violence and ensure every student feels safe and supported. What does it mean to create genuinely inclusive university environments, and how can student voice and lived experience shape the support available?

Pablo Van Schravendyk, part of the conference organising team, reflects on the impact of contributing to a student-led conference. Alongside this, a series of lightning talks brings together students, activists and researchers to explore wellbeing, mental health inequalities and the importance of meeting students where they are.

Max Edwards discusses the development of a student-led digital resource to help young people navigate the transition to university, from managing expectations and loneliness to accessing appropriate support. Jamie McNulty explores mental health inequalities among neurodivergent young people, challenging systems that make support dependent on diagnosis. Molly Haning, founder of Academics Against Assault, examines student- and survivor-led approaches to preventing sexual violence and harassment in higher education. Finally, James Sweeney considers the mental health challenges associated with the transition from school to university, and how families, schools and universities can better prepare young people for this change.

Together, these conversations explore the opportunities and challenges facing higher education, highlighting the importance of accessible support, preventative approaches and collaboration between students, researchers and practitioners. They ask how universities can move beyond established systems to create environments where students feel understood, supported and able to thrive.

Content note: This episode includes discussion of self-harm and thoughts of suicide (10:40), as well as sexual violence and harassment (12:30). Please take care when listening.

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In this episode, Dr Gareth Hughes takes us deeper into the world of mental health concepts, diagnostic terms, and the uneasy binary between illness and health. Drawing on ideas like concept creep, he challenges approaches that try to pin down “the right use of words”, approaches that assume mental health language can be fixed, precise, and universally agreed upon.

Gareth argues that language simply doesn’t work that way. We’re asking it to do things it hasn’t evolved to do. And because of this, clinicians, academics, and mental health professionals often end up having the wrong conversations, conversations that can impose meaning on others in ways that are unhelpful, or even harmful.

Alongside this critique, Gareth brings decades of experience as a psychotherapist, researcher, lecturer, and sector leader. He is the lead author of the University Mental Health Charter, a clinical advisor to Student Minds, and the creator of multiple sector‑shaping resources including Education for Mental Health, Student Space, and The Wellbeing Thesis. He is also a Principal Fellow of the HEA and author of Be Well, Learn Well.

This episode invites listeners to rethink how language shapes our understanding of mental health,  and what happens when the words we rely on begin to stretch, shift, and blur.

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Our first live interview dives into the language of mental health, how we use it, how it’s changing, and why it matters. Are we living in an era of overdiagnosis, or is society finally naming experiences we’ve always understood?

Anna, Researcher in Residence at All Things Mental Health, sits down with Dr Gareth Hughes, Clinical Lead at Student Minds, to unpack the frustrations and opportunities emerging from new iterations of mental health language.

Alongside this critique, Gareth brings decades of experience as a psychotherapist, researcher, lecturer, and sector leader. He is the lead author of the University Mental Health Charter, a clinical advisor to Student Minds, and the creator of multiple sector‑shaping resources including Education for Mental Health, Student Space, and The Wellbeing Thesis. He is also a Principal Fellow of the HEA and author of Be Well, Learn Well.

Together, they explore what it means to research student mental health in a shifting cultural landscape, and how the words we choose shape the stories we tell and our experiences of services.

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The SMaRteN 2026 Conference brought together researchers, students, clinicians, activists, and educators to rethink how universities understand and support student mental health. Across Lightning Talks, Panels, Workshops, Posters, and Discussion Sessions, the event created space for fresh ideas, shared experiences, and collective problem solving.

This introduction episode captures one of those spaces: a live podcast recorded at King’s College London in collaboration with SMaRteN and All Things Mental Health.

Join your host Anna Bailie, Researcher in Residence from All Things Mental Health as we introduce our brand new series Rethinking University Mental Health. A twelve‑episode exploration of complexity, culture, and collective responsibility in student wellbeing.

Hear directly from the people shaping the future of student mental health, and dive into conversations that challenge assumptions, spark curiosity, and open up new ways of thinking.

Stay tuned as our conference hosts kick off this audio journey, and access a more accessible academia.

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The problem is clear: our current systems rarely value the time it takes to build trust and relationships. Yet trust is the foundation of meaningful change. Whether for individuals, communities, or entire systems.

For Funto, Kyra and Millie, relationships are not an optional extra; they are the work. We know that relationships move at the speed of trust, and we honour that pace. Sometimes it feels like a two-step dance between process and relationship, but we take the time to understand our own relational patterns before stepping into the hard work of change together.

We also recognise that ruptures are not failures but inevitable parts of life. That is why we invest deeply in the ongoing practice of repair, friendship and self-care. Relational learning is not always comfortable, but it is always transformational.

The intention behind this podcast is for young people to be in conversation with each other and from various intersections of the community around Partisan’s 4 pillars. These are:

 🔁 Relationships
 💸 Redistribution
 🌱 Regeneration
 🛠️ Repair

This series explores conversations between young people, Partisan staff, elders, clinicians, and community changemakers—from climate justice organisers to mental health advocates. It is a space for dialogue, connection, and redefining what support means in a world that has not always been fair.

As Partisan closes, the work doesn’t end. Over the past five years, young people, partners, and communities have shown us what’s possible when support is built on trust, justice, and real relationships.

The systems we imagined together are more human, more connected, more equitable and will continue through the people who shaped them. The learning, the practice, and the courage to do things differently lives on beyond this project.

Thank you to everyone who walked with us. The legacy of Partisan isn’t an organisation, it's the relationships, the ideas, and the futures we’ve sparked together.

Find out more at partisanuk.org 

Access the resource pack for this series here linktr.ee/ATMH 

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Our hosts begin by acknowledging that the current system has harmed and continues to traumatise and marginalise racialised communities.

For Millie and Reuben, repair is not a single act. It is a long-term, relational, and political commitment. It moves beyond service delivery into trust-building, truth-telling, and deep listening. It asks us to redefine what healing means, and crucially, who gets to define it.

At its heart, repair is about staying in a relationship, even when it is hard, which it often is, and  about naming harm, taking responsibility, and supporting people to live their preferred story.

The intention behind this podcast is for young people to be in conversation with each other and from various intersections of the community around Partisan’s 4 pillars. These are:

 🔁 Relationships
 💸 Redistribution
 🌱 Regeneration
 🛠️ Repair

This series explores conversations between young people, Partisan staff, elders, clinicians, and community changemakers—from climate justice organisers to mental health advocates. It is a space for dialogue, connection, and redefining what support means in a world that has not always been fair.

Find out more at partisanuk.org 

Access the resource pack for this series here linktr.ee/ATMH 

Thanks for listening!

To regenerate, we begin with a recognition. The current global system is extractive. It sustains white supremacy, heteropatriarchy, and dominant narratives that deplete us. Dismissing wisdom held across cultures and generations, and oppresses our communities.

Ruth and Michael Hamilton discuss how regeneration represents our refusal of that cycle. It is a change designed to last, sustained, retained, and built upon without burning people out. It is about working in ways that honour limits, grow capacity, and prioritise collective nourishment over depletion.

Communities already hold vast ideas and strength. We draw on these, as well as ancestral and cultural wisdom. Guided by the Ghanaian principle of Sankofa, we return to recover what was lost, dismissed, or forgotten, and bring it forward with care, so that mistakes are not repeated.

Regeneration is not just about sustaining work and productivity, it is about sustaining people, together.

The intention behind this podcast is for young people to be in conversation with each other and from various intersections of the community around Partisan’s 4 pillars. These are:

 🔁 Relationships
 💸 Redistribution
 🌱 Regeneration
 🛠️ Repair

This series explores conversations between young people, Partisan staff, elders, clinicians, and community changemakers, from climate justice organisers to mental health advocates. It is a space for dialogue, connection, and redefining what support means in a world that has not always been fair.

Find out more at partisanuk.org 

Access the resource pack for this series here linktr.ee/ATMH 

Thanks for listening!

A few people, and a few institutions, currently hold most of the power, knowledge, and resources. We choose approaches that intentionally disrupt this imbalance, redistributing power to racially minoritised communities.

Our two young hosts, Ruth and Millie, describe how redistribution is not only about fairness; it is also a strategy. Those most affected by injustice often hold the deepest insight, creativity, and solutions. When we fund, trust, and platform the voices at the margins, and respond to their needs, everyone benefits.

True redistribution also means letting go of control. It calls us to step back so that others can step forward. It shifts not only where power sits, but also who decides, designs, and defines the future.

The intention behind this podcast is for young people to be in conversation with each other and from various intersections of the community around Partisan’s 4 pillars. These are:

 🔁 Relationships
 💸 Redistribution
 🌱 Regeneration
 🛠️ Repair

This series explores conversations between young people, Partisan staff, elders, clinicians, and community changemakers—from climate justice organisers to mental health advocates. It is a space for dialogue, connection, and redefining what support means in a world that has not always been fair. 

Find out more at partisanuk.org

Access the resource pack for this series here linktr.ee/ATMH 

This episode was recorded shortly after a Community Impact Weekend held by Partisan in Lewisham in May 2025 which episode host Millie attended. You can find out more by reading reflections on Partisan’s website.

Thanks for listening!