Freshers Festival Group to launch the national Student Health & Wellbeing Summit to support students struggling with mental health

What are the facts?

• Around 500,000 university students in the UK (20%) have a diagnosed mental health issue.
• Over 1 million university students (50%) are estimated to have thought about self harm.
• Over 600,000 university students (66%) feel they have needed psychological help.

These are simply the figures for university students last year (The Insight Network, 2019). School & college students will be equally struggling, and 2020 has only made things worse. Lockdowns & isolation have caused more mental health damage than ever before, with students across the board feeling additional stresses and anxieties:

“It’s my first year in college and starting online is so stressful I cannot cope” (Jessica, 18).

“I’m scared I won’t meet friends because of lockdown and societies aren’t running” (Amy, 19).

“I’m feeling really homesick and isolating has made it so much worse” (Jamie, 18).

These are just some of the messages received by Freshers Festival Group over the last couple of weeks (names anonymised). With the introduction of a new national lockdown this November, students will need all the support they can get.

On 25th November, Freshers Festival Group are holding the inaugural Student Health & Wellbeing Summit. This will be a day of mental health tips, Q&As, and giveaways to provide students with a bit of help & guidance during the November lockdown. 

The online event will include:

• Mental Health tips from Mad Millennials, Voicebox & YouTube influencers
• An “ask me anything” session to answer students queries
• A panel with Dr Gemma Newman, Tonic Health and a Nutritionist
• A live discussion with the team behind The Gut Stuff
• Yoga and home exercise tutorials
• Competitions and giveaways
• A mocktail masterclass 
• Content on nutrition, sleep, healthy recipes and lots more…

After the success of the first-ever Virtual Freshers Festival in September, which reached over 1 million students, the founder of Freshers Festival Group, Graeme Barratt, hopes for a similar result:

Graeme Barratt, Managing Director & Founder of Freshers Festival Group:

 “At Freshers Festival Group our aim is to create experiences which encourage students to connect with each other as well as the brands and organisations they need to make their time in education fun, positive, healthy and successful. With so many students feeling lost and isolated, never has this been so necessary. We want students to understand that they are not alone and to deliver the best information we can to equip them to make positive decisions to tackle the various challenges COVID-19 brings.”