Mental health trailblazers achieve prestigious award
Embedding a whole university approach to health and wellbeing on all of its campuses has earned the University of Lancashire a prestigious University Mental Health Charter Award.
Highly praised by assessors for its continuous efforts to improve its community’s wellbeing and mental health outcomes, the University was bestowed with an outright Award on Tuesday 21 April, when it joins 23 other universities that have received the Award since 2022, making a total of 26 Award-holding universities.
Vice Chancellor Professor Graham Baldwin said: “Taking part in the University Mental Health Charter programme has been an incredibly positive experience for the University of Lancashire. The process gave us the opportunity to pause, reflect, and really listen to our students, our staff, and our partners about what supports wellbeing across our university community.
“The Charter has helped us bring people together around a shared goal – creating an environment where mental health and wellbeing are part of everyday university life, not something dealt with in isolation.”
The awarding panel has recommended that the University of Lancashire now collaborates with Student Minds, the UK’s student mental health charity, to share experience and best practice with the wider sector through case studies on its whole-university approach.
Assessors said achieving an Award outright at the first submission was highly unusual but testament to the University of Lancashire’s genuine whole-university approach.
Professor Baldwin added: “The Charter has strengthened collaboration across teams, sharpened our focus on culture and belonging and reinforced the vital role of prevention and early support. The work will continue but the Charter has given us a clear direction and strong foundations for lasting positive change.”
The University’s award status will last for five years, a period that will be spent on work to improve upon the award status further. Only the University of the West of England in Bristol has received an Award with Merit, something the University of Lancashire is confident of emulating.