• Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar
  • Skip to footer

Think Positive

Improving student mental wellbeing and tackling the stigma attached to mental illness.

  • Home
  • Our Work
    • 2020 MH Research
    • Student Mental Health Agreement Project
      • Sign-up
      • 2019/20 Participants
      • FAQs
    • Consultancy Support Appointment Booking
    • Small Grant Scheme
  • 2020 conference
    • Session sign-up
    • Sign-up – now closed
  • Resources
    • Project resources
    • Order activity freebies
    • Refreshers’ Event
    • Support and Links
    • Research and other
    • COVID-19
      • Resources
    • Other
      • Recovery
      • Self Management
      • Student Mental Health Campaigns
      • Stigma and Discrimination
      • Supporting students: Mental Health Journeys
      • Mental Health Quick Info
      • Newsletter
  • News and Blogs
  • E-mail
  • Facebook
  • Instagram
  • Twitter

17th February 2016

Ending Stigma and Discrimination on Campus

Through working with students who are living with mental illness over the past few years, we knew that stigma and discrimination happens too often in our colleges and universities. We wanted to find out more about the experiences students have of stigma and discrimination, and the impact these experiences have on their education and lives.

With the support of See Me community innovation funding, we were able to explore this area as part of a wider project where students with lived experiences led campaigns across three institutions on a range of issues related to stigma and discrimination.

Reporting stigma and discrimination

We created a survey, an online reporting tool for students from any university or college in Scotland to tell us about specific incidences of discrimination linked to their mental ill health, and the impact that had on them. It was promoted through students’ associations, social media and word of mouth, and we collected up a number of experiences. We then anonymised the responses, and they helped us to develop a guide for staff and students with the title “Ending Stigma and Discrimination on Campus” alongside short workshops, to show people working in colleges and universities what they can do to help tackle this issue.

What did students tell us?

The experiences reported included incidents such as:

  • Not being given approval to miss classes for counselling or therapy appointments as those appointments were not classified as “medical appointments”  – therefore having to choose between treatment and being marked as absent and which could potentially influence grades
  • Not being provided with lecture notes for classes missed for reasons related to mental illness – such as mood being too low to get out of bed, or because concentration issues meant note taking was difficult
  • Not being granted extensions despite medical notes detailing the impact of a mental illness on studies
  • Inappropriate and unhelpful comments, such as being told “it would be better if you dropped out” and “it’s all in your head” and “if you can’t handle this course how will you handle a workplace” for example.

We wanted to know what impact this kind of, often unlawful, discrimination had. Many said it made them feel ashamed of their illness, a good number cited physical complaints such as headaches and stomach pains, most mentioned increased anxiety, some spoke of financial difficulties linked to having to pay for resits, some said they were too embarrassed to go back to classes or see certain staff members. Generally overall there was a sense of increased pressure and additional stress, which is the last thing anyone needs, let alone someone already experiencing a mental health problem.

The guide and the staff workshops

Once the experiences had been anonymised and turned in to case studies, NUS Scotland offered workshops focused on improving student experience to staff in a number of institutions. These had significant impact, we saw some staff members shocked at the way students had been treated, but more interestingly we saw people admitting they had said, done or witnessed similar happenings and hadn’t realised the impact it had on the individual student.

cover of report

Because of this, we created the “Ending Stigma and Discrimination in Universities and Colleges“ guide which is available from NUS Scotland and is aimed at staff working in colleges and universities. It contains an outline of the responsibilities universities and colleges have under the Equality Act 2010, examples from the experiences we collected, and suggestions about what reasonable adjustments might mean for students who are experiencing mental ill health.

The guide has been well received and it is hoped this goes some way to ensuring we end stigma and discrimination in colleges and universities. Get in touch to find out more!

This work was possible thanks to funding from See Me, and advice and guidance from the Equality and Human Rights Commission. 

 

Share on FacebookShare on Google+Tweet about this on TwitterShare on LinkedInPrint this page
Previous Post
Next Post

Reader Interactions

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

Primary Sidebar

We want to hear from you

We want to keep you up to date with our work and the landscape for student mental health in Scotland.

We also want to share the voices and experience of staff and students in Education. This blog area is where we will publish blogs and other content from you.

Get in touch if you would like to write something: thinkpositive@nus-scotland.org.uk

You can also keep an eye on our social media for us doing shout outs for contributors!

Follow us on Facebook and Twitter for regular updates!

stigma Sarah

More from the blog

The Feeling Good App – University of Edinburgh

26th October 2020

World Mental Health Day – 2020

12th October 2020

Digital Wellbeing

1st September 2020

Archives

  • October 2020
  • September 2020
  • May 2020
  • April 2020
  • February 2020
  • November 2019
  • September 2019
  • July 2019
  • May 2019
  • October 2018
  • September 2018
  • August 2018
  • July 2018
  • June 2018
  • December 2016
  • November 2016
  • October 2016
  • September 2016
  • August 2016
  • July 2016
  • May 2016
  • April 2016
  • March 2016
  • February 2016
  • April 2014
  • March 2014
  • February 2014
  • December 2013
  • November 2013
  • September 2013
  • August 2013
  • July 2013
Tweets by thinkposNUS
  • Whilst 2020 might be a year we'd all like to forget, one of the best things to come out of it for us was our amazin… https://t.co/5bAPRzxMx7 15th January 2021 8:30 am

Footer

Contact us

NUS Scotland
1 Papermill Wynd,
McDonald Road,
Edinburgh
EH7 4QL

Registered charity: SCO043361

E:  thinkpositive@nus-scotland.org.uk

thinkpositive.scot

National union of students scotland logo

Healthier Scotland logo

  • Sitemap
  • Privacy
  • Accessibility

Copyright © 2021 National Union of Students · Illustrations by createpod · Site by graphics.coop · Powered by WordPress