Yearly Archives: 2021

Supporting the mental health of Black and racially minoritised students

Warning: Contents contain references to racism and may have a triggering effect for some individuals

Racism can happen anywhere; at work, at home, at University, online or in the physical world. Racism is still a very real and damaging facet of modern day society and can have a long term and lasting impact on anyone who has experienced it either directly or indirectly. This includes the mental and emotional strain created by microaggressions. Here at Kent we want to support all students who have been affected or continue to be affected by racism and work together to create a culture where racism is not just challenged, but eradicated completely.

Have you been affected by racism? Young minds have some great resources and signpost organisations and helpline services to support you:

Advice on racism and mental health #BHMKent2021

Speak to someone you can trust. It might be difficult to talk about how you are feeling or to revisit personal experiences of racism. Take your time and only share what you are comfortable sharing. Student Support and Wellbeing have a free confidential counselling service for all students at Kent.

Learn your rights and how to report abuse. This can help empower you and remind you that what you are experiencing is not okay and no one should express that it is. Use our online reporting tool ‘Report and Support’ to be part of a culture shift and get the support you need. Allies should acquaint themselves with the support tools available as well so that they can be advocates for their friends and classmates.

Find supportive groups and communities who understand what you are going through. It can be very hard to explain how you feel to a person that has not experienced racism, whether directly or indirectly. Communities can be a way to find like-minded people with similar experiences and shared interests that you can talk to, have a safe space to be heard and remember that you are not alone. One of the online platforms you have free access to as a Kent student is Togetherall.

Join a movement to create change. There are many anti-racist movements and organisations who are fighting for change in society. Being part of a larger movement can help you feel empowered, valued and give you a sense of hope that change is possible. Make sure to take time out to rest and look after yourself if you are regularly involved in activism. Kent Union supports a number of student networks. These are student-led spaces where students who share an interest of identity can discuss issues relating to their group and help build a community.

Remember it is not your responsibility to fix racism. Do not put pressure on yourself – this is a problem you cannot solve on your own. The people around you all have a responsibility to make changes to their behaviour and to uphold the rights of Black and racially minoritised individuals.

Enough is Enough! Clean your social media feed. What we see online can have a negative impact on our mental health, but remember you can have control over what you see on your social media. Try unfollowing or blocking accounts and muting words that upset you. All social media channels have ways you can report abusive behaviour. At Kent we expect certain standards of behaviour both online and in the ‘real’ world. If you are concerned about anything you see you can report it to us in a safe and confidential manner using our online Report and Support tool.

The University of Kent and Kent Union are working together to celebrate Black History Month 2021 #BHMKent2021. Take a look at the Kent Union BHM website for events and resources at Kent. This includes a free mental health support workshop by Diverse Cymru, an organisation that specialises in Black mental health. Please check the website for further information and to register your attendance.

Photo by Mubarak Showole on Unsplash

‘If we can do one thing, we can change everything’ – World Mental Health Day

An article by Brenda Brunsdon, Occupational Health and Wellbeing Manager

All the major health focused organisations, especially those whose principal aim is to support people with mental health problems, are promoting initiatives for World Mental Health Day on 10 October. Initially promoted by the World Federation for Mental Health, their chosen theme for this year is ‘Mental Health in an Unequal World’. The World Health Organisation has worked with this and has a theme of ‘Mental health care for all: let’s make it a reality’.

The day is promoted in the UK by Mental Health UK and their chosen theme is ‘Forward Together for Mental Health’; the aim is to focus on inequality of mental health support provision and to encourage people to learn about how big a problem this is and to work to change things. MIND’s theme is ‘If we can do one thing, we can change everything’; it emphasises that small changes made by enough people can work to make a difference in mental health inequality provision.

The NHS is struggling to provide services after the acute strains of the pandemic with the ‘aftershocks’ of that event continuing. We have entered what appears to be a chronic phase of lesser numbers of infections but with debilitating disease still affecting some people who contract Covid 19. Most people know how difficult it is to get an appointment at a GP surgery or subsequent referrals for investigations for any health problem. Waiting lists for treatment are very long.

Traditionally, NHS care and treatment provision for mental ill health has been a difficult area, where demand for service has overwhelmingly outstripped supply; the pandemic has made this situation worse. Mental ill health presents a major problem in our post-pandemic society. Many people have been adversely affected by the strains of the pandemic and developed mental ill health. Many people who had pre-existing mental health problems have seen their symptoms worsen.

There is general inequality of service for mental healthcare provision in the UK and across the world. If you access the webpages of the various organisations below, you will find lots of information on this. Living with a system of inequality is something that most of us struggle with. Inequality of mental health support provision applies equally in workplaces. I believe it is therefore important that people take advantage of good support when they have it available. The University has a strong offering of mental health support for its staff, superior or at least equal to that of many organisations, including higher educational establishments. There is a dedicated area of the University intranet which brings together information on all the support available: Mental Health Support at Kent One Stop Shop Information at this site includes:

How to access the Employee Assistance Programme
How to access support through OH, especially Management Referrals for adjustments at work to help with significant levels of mental ill health or rehabilitation back to full working following absence due to mental ill health
Training courses and modules available on mental health and wellbeing. This includes how to become a Mental Health Ally
Support Network groups and societies available including the University Health & Wellbeing Yammer Community
Books and resources available from the library: the Staff Wellbeing Reading List
An online i-resilience tool formulated by one the experts in wellbeing and resilience at work in the UK, Robertson-Cooper, who are linked to the University of Manchester
Accessing exercise facilities: Kent Sport; Campus Walks and the Vice-Chancellor’s Cup. Exercise is known to help with positive mental health and wellbeing:

The reason I am revisiting this in this blog post is that it is relevant to the MIND theme: ‘If we can do one thing, we can change everything’. Maybe the one thing you could do, as a staff member, is to go and read the information on the University’s Mental Health Support at Kent One Stop Shop. This is so you can have the information ready to help a colleague who might be facing mental health problems; it would be invaluable to be able to quickly signpost them to somewhere they can access help and resources. This is doubly so if you are a manager at the University, so that you can help members of your team.

Make it your one thing to do; perhaps, one day, it will change everything for one person you have contact with, or even yourself.

World Federation for Mental Health website – WMH 2021

World Health Organisation website – WMH 2021

Mental Health UK website – WMH 2021

MIND website – WMH 2021

Philip Leverhulme Prize presentation for Professor Emily Grabham

One year after winning a £100k Philip Leverhulme Prize in Law, Kent Law School Professor Emily Grabham has received her award at an event in London.

Delayed by the Coronavirus pandemic, the prizes for 2020 recipients were presented by Sir Keith Thomas CH FBA, at the Philip Leverhulme Prize Gala Dinner held in Plaisterer’s Hall on 21 September.

Philip Leverhulme Prizes are awarded to researchers whose work has had international impact and whose future research career is exceptionally promising.

Professor Grabham has achieved international recognition for her research over the last ten years, attracting numerous competitive grants, and gaining multiple national prizes. Her work champions an influential emerging field of scholarship on the relationship between law and time. She argues that paying attention to how people think about, and experience, time is crucial to understanding how equality laws work.

Since completing her work on the Future of Legal Gender, an ambitious project on the legal regulation of sex and gender in England & Wales, Professor Grabham is working on A Day at a Time, a project which explores the everyday experience of time in the Coronavirus pandemic.

It’s one of two ambitious empirical studies that the Leverhulme prize money has enabled Professor Grabham to undertake and which she hopes will reach a wide public audience.

The second, on ‘Legislative Drafting’, builds on her work on the Future of Legal Gender project. For this, Professor Grabham will conduct a multi-sited ethnographic study applying insights from legislative drafting to key debates in legal theory.

Last week, Professor Grabham’s most recent book, Women, Precarious Work and Care: The Failure of Family-friendly Rights, was published by Bristol University Press. Drawing on interviews with women in precarious work, the book exposes the everyday problems faced by workers balancing work and care.

Sustainability – Climate Action Week

Don’t forget to keep a space in your diaries for Climate Action Week at the end of October!

Working in conjunction with a Canterbury-wide climate action week, organised by Canterbury Climate Action Partnership (CCAP) and involving Canterbury BID, councils and others, we have got a great week planned from Monday 25 – Friday 29 October.

Taking place in the run-up to COP26 (the 26th UN Climate Change Conference), we will be holding a series of events focused on sustainability at Kent and celebrating the launch of the University’s Sustainability Strategy.

To see the plan for the week, please visit our Climate Action Webpage, which we’ll continue to update as content for some of the events is finalised.

Among events taking place are:

Launch of the University of Kent’s Sustainability Strategy – Tuesday 26 October – 12.00-13.00

Introduced by Professor Richard Reece, Deputy Vice-Chancellor Education and Student Experience, this free online event will include a presentation given by Catherine Morris, Environmental Adviser, of the four major themes running through the strategy and a panel discussion. Please register in advance – details on how to do so will be updated to the webpage.

COP26@Kent: Co-Create your campus of the future – Thursday 28 October – 12.00-14.00

The Sustainability Team is inviting everyone to take part in a special event hosted in the Gulbenkian to co-create the campus of the future. They’ll be showcasing key areas of sustainability activity at the University and asking students, staff and community members to have their say and share their ideas of how we might transform these areas into truly sustainable and innovative good practice exemplars.

For more details on events taking place from 26-29 October, please visit the Climate Action Week webpage.

Events to launch our Migration and Movement Signature Research Theme

One of our first Signature Research Themes, Migration and Movement has unveiled an exciting programme of research and public engagement events this Autumn.

Designed to showcase outstanding work across the theme and to stimulate new interdisciplinary conversations, the events are open to all Kent colleagues, as well as members of the public.

Dates for your diary include:

Wednesday 13 October – Launch: Countering Hostile Environments’
From 15.00-17.00, School of Arts, Jarman 1, followed by a drinks reception from 17.00-18.00 in Jarman Foyer – 13 October.

To launch the Migration and Movement SRT, and in preparation for the visit of The Walk, Dr Rachel Gregory Fox, Dr Bahriye Kemal, and Dr Jonathan Rock Rokem will discuss their current research projects, each of which considers hostile asylum and immigration regimes and how they can be countered. Chaired by Professor David Herd, this session will address the implications of the new Nationality and Borders Bill and how a politics of expulsion can be resisted through research.

Following the panel, Dr Sweta Rajan-Rankin will lead an open discussion on the question: ‘What does Migration Mean to You?’ designed to help SRT members start shaping the Theme’s work.

The event is free but please book your place via Eventbrite. It will be live-streamed for those unable to make it in person.

Thursday 21 October – The Walk: Welcoming Amal to the University of Kent
Procession from Canterbury Cathedral to our campus from 12–14.00 and Refugee Tales welcome event from 19.00-20.30 in Gulbenkian Theatre.

In collaboration with Refugee Tales and the Institute for Cultural and Creative Industries, the Migration and Movement SRT is delighted to welcome Amal and The Walk (see image below) to the University of Kent. Find out more about joining the procession and/or our evening welcome event in our Staff News story.

Book your tickets now for our Refugee Tales Welcomes Amal event on the Gulbenkian webpages.

Various dates in October – Just An Other Crossing

You may have noticed a sea container outside Gulbenkian this week – this is a new instillation by Local Foreigner. In this immersive installation you find yourself on a boat travelling the channel through virtual reality film and the live amplification of your heart beat.

Its free! You can just turn up on specific dates in October – details can be found on the Gulbenkian website.

Friday 12 November – Suppliant Women by The Foreign Office
Pre-show drinks from 18.00-19.30 in Gulbenkian Café and post-show talk from 21.15 in Gulbenkian Theatre.

Centring on a community chorus of women fleeing Egypt and seeking refuge in Argos to escape forced marriage, Suppliant Women is one of the oldest surviving Greek plays. This captivating production by The Foreign Office revives a remarkably contemporary tragedy about migration and the ethical dilemma of hospitality, blending music, dance and drama in a distinctive stage language that will strike audiences as both strange and familiar. It is an opportunity to engage with themes of migration in ancient Greece and its present-day resonances. Book your tickets now on the Gulbenkian webpages.

Wednesday 17 November – Head2Head: Migration and the non-human: Thinking about symbiotic assemblages of movement
From 15.00-17.00 online.

Dr Sweta Rajan-Rankin chairs this dynamic session, which steps away from traditional academic presentation formats and embraces the “Head2Head” approach highlighting the importance of rapid fire, synergies-in-action discussion. Being truly inter-disciplinary can be difficult and using H2H enables blue sky thinking by decoupling ideas from disciplinary confines. Migration has often been linked to human movement, but what about non-human agents such as migration of blood and tissue, knowledge systems and curating of migrant spaces?

Using Joanne Latimer’s concept of post-human assemblages, we pay attention to the migration of objects, bodily and fleshy parts, memories and curated objects, as a way of making sense of the political assemblage of migrant subjectivities. Speakers will include: Dr Matt Whittle (School of English) Dr Jill Shepherd (School of Biosciences) and Dr Sukvinder Bhamra (Medway School of Pharmacy). A registration link will be circulated nearer the time.

Wednesday 8 December – ‘Migration and Creative Practice’
From 15.00-17.00 in the Dockyard Church at Medway campus.

This final Migration and Movement SRT event of the Autumn term explores different ways in which notions of cultural intimacy, hybridity and appropriation are perceived in the fields of poetry, theatre and music. Three practice-based researchers – Minna Jeffery, Drama by Practice as Research PhD candidate in the School of Arts; Winsome Monica Minott, a poet and Creative Practice PHD candidate in the School of English; and Richard Lightman, record producer, composer, musician and Head of the Centre for Music and Audio Technology at Kent – will present and discuss their ongoing creative projects. A booking link will be circulated nearer the time and the event will be live-streamed.

SHARE YOUR VIEWS

We look forward to you joining us to help shape the work of the Migration and Movement SRT. Please feel free to get in touch with us at: srt-mm-lead@kent.ac.uk.

Professor David Herd (School of English), Dr Margherita Laera (School of Arts, Drama), Dr Tom Parkinson (Centre for the Study of Higher Education) and Dr Sweta Rajan-Rankin (School of Social Policy Sociology and Social Research)

Get involved with The Walk!

The University’s Institute of Cultural and Creative Industries (iCCi) is excited to be hosting The Walk on 21 October, one of the biggest international community arts projects ever produced.

The Walk is a travelling outdoor performance consisting of a giant puppet of a Syrian refugee girl named Amal, created by Handspring Puppet Company, walking from Turkey to the UK via Greece, Italy, France and other countries. Amal is a 9-year-old girl who wants to find her mother, travelling across Europe and meeting people along the way to highlight the plight of refugees. Colleagues in our Migration and Movement Signature Research Theme will join iCCi in hosting a series of events to accompany her arrival.

Kent is the only university in the UK to host little Amal. We will be welcoming her to the University with a procession, walking from the Cathedral to the Canterbury campus, starting at midday on Thursday 21 October. We will be joined by 350 local school-children and a marching band. She will also be welcomed by a giant red fox (see sketch below), a puppet that Kent Drama students will operate under the supervision of Kent alumnus, Peter Morton, of Half a String and Sam Westbury, our Drama Workshop Manager.

David Sefton, Director of Culture and Creative Projects for iCCi: ‘I am delighted that The Walk is the first major community event to be produced by the University’s Institute of Cultural & Creative Industries. The fact that this is such a significant public art event nationally and internationally based around a crucially important theme, and that it is able to incorporate the activities of multiple university departments as well as our own outreach initiative, makes The Walk the perfect demonstration of what iCCi is uniquely set-up to deliver for the University and the whole of Kent.’

HOW TO GET INVOLVED

Making the Puppet until 8 October – Sign up asap!

We need you! Can you help us build the giant fox puppet? The puppet-making workshops have started in the Arts Workshop (Marlowe Building) with Sam Westbury and Peter Morton. Visit tinyurl.com/thewalkkent to sign up to a slot.

Coming along to the procession on 21 October

Join us at the Cathedral at 11.30 on 21 October. We will walk via Westgate, St. Dunstans, Forty Acres Rd, and up one of the footpaths on to campus. More details will be announced nearer the time via the Gulbenkian webpages.

Attending the Refugee Tales evening event on 21 October

On 21 October at 19.00, an event hosted by Refugee Tales will feature tales and music by refugees who have experienced indefinite immigration detention. Amal will also be in attendance. Book your tickets now, priced £10 and £5 for students, on the Gulbenkian webpages.

Posting on social media

Our tags are #AmalatKent and #littleAmal – do feel free to share.

Telling your students

Please feel free to highlight The Walk in class to your students by forwarding this email to them.

FIND OUT MORE

We’re looking forward to you joining us in our preparations to welcome Amal! Find out more about The Walk with Amal webpages. You can read more about Amal’s journey in The Guardian. If you have any questions, please get in touch with Margherita Laera.

Staff webchats this Autumn

We are currently putting together our schedule for Staff Webchats over the Autumn term, ensuring everyone has a chance to hear directly from those working on the University’s key initiatives and can put their questions across.

Topics planned so far include:

USS pensions – reflecting on recent changes and open to all but targeted towards colleagues who are members of the scheme. This webchat will take place on Wednesday 13 October, 12.00-13.00. Find out more and register to join the session on Teams.
Sustainability – highlighting events around Climate Action Week, COP26 and the launch of the University Sustainability Strategy in late October.
KentVision – updating on latest developments and upcoming changes based on staff and student feedback.
University finances – talking through our annual accounts when they are published later in the year

Got an idea for other topics you’d like to know more about and/or have your say on? Let us know by emailing the Communications team and help us shape the schedule through the year!

World Mental Health Day – Sunday 10 October

Sunday 10 October 2021 is World Mental Health Day.

If we all do one thing, we can change everything – World Mental Health Day | Mind, the mental health charity – help for mental health problems.

Mental health is often determined by where we live or who we are.

This Mental health day, do one thing:

Add your voice – start a conversation about Mental Health
Learn about Mental Health and its inequality
Ask for and access information and support if you need it.

At Kent, we have a number of resources for all staff to access:

Employee Assistance Programme
Psychotherapy available through OH
Health and Wellbeing Yammer channel
Health and Wellbeing Strategy Statement and Psychological Wellbeing Standard
Mental Health ‘One Stop Shop’
Online Moodle training packages for staff on wellbeing and mental health
Manager Mental Health @ Work training sessions through T&OD
Inclusion Passport and Manager Guidance
Reasonable Adjustments e-learning via Staff Moodle.

Over the next year, we are also planning to provide further support – look out for:

the introduction of Mental Health Allies
a number of training sessions via Mind – three sessions of each across the academic year (one per term) in different formats – virtual, on campus and at the Mind facilities in Folkestone. Topics will include:

– Understanding Stress and Anxiety 90 Minutes
– Understanding depression– 90 minutes
– Mental Health Awareness – 90 minutes
– Introduction to workplace Mental health and wellbeing – 120 minutes.

Invitation to the Global Officers Leadership Development (GOLD) Programme

We are delighted to invite Kent students to apply for this year’s Global Officers Leadership Development (GOLD) Programme. The programme is a co-curricular venture, designed to fit around your academic studies. It provides a framework of activities for globally-minded undergraduate students at Kent to develop their leadership skills, global citizenship and cultural awareness.

There are 5 components which can be completed throughout the academic year. Benefits include:

Employability Points awarded per activity
Certificate of recognition and personal reference from the Dean for Internationalisation
Recognition on your Higher Education Achievement Report
Practical event & project management experience
A chance for you to record your international skill development in the Kent Global Passport.

This programme is also offered as a credit-bearing ‘wild’ module, GOLD5000.

For further details please see our website.

Deadline to apply is midnight, 10th October, 2021.

(If considering taking this as a wild module, usual module registration deadline applies).

What past students have said:

I would highly recommend this programme to any student who is globally minded and wants to be more active on campus, as well as wanting to learn new skills that you don’t get when you join a society.

Preena Dodhia, BSc Biomedical Science

I thoroughly enjoyed my participation in the GOLD programme, not only do I think that it has allowed me to develop skills that have strengthened my employability, I also found the programme to be an important avenue for expression during an intense final year of study. I would recommend the GOLD programme to any student that is interested in further developing themselves personally and professionally.
Leo Harris, BA History and Spanish

The GOLD programme is a GREAT opportunity for anyone looking to place themselves out of their comfort zone, gain skills and meet like-minded people. It gave me the chance to develop new interests and connect to other programmes and opportunities with international universities, all of which can be utilised in my search for a job after university. I have made amazing friends who I will keep in touch with, and felt like I have extended my year abroad experience in the comfort of Kent, keeping my passion for understanding cultures alive! I would recommend GOLD to all Kent students with an interest in the international and encourage you to put yourself out there.

Lucy Lavender, BA Politics and International Relations with a Year in Continental Europe

What’s new or different with Library and IT services at Kent

Welcome back! See what’s new or changed in IT and library services since the last academic year.

Getting back onto eduroam Wi-Fi

We had to change some Wi-Fi settings recently, so if you have any trouble follow these steps to connect to eduroam. For a superior service make sure you use eduroam and not WiFi Guest (which is for visitors and isn’t designed to meet student and staff needs).

Your Digital Library reinvented – we think you’ll love it!

Accessing digital resources is easy with our refreshed Digital Resources Directory – a comprehensive list of the library resources and databases we buy for you. There’s a feedback form on there so you can let us know what you think – it’s a vital tool and we want to make sure it works well for you.

Off campus? Online access has changed

From off campus you’ll have to verify your identity before you can log into email, Microsoft 365 services, Moodle, Student Data System and other systems. This is multi-factor authentication and is there to protect your account. For help setting it up see our guide to multi-factor authentication.

We’ve also replaced our VPN service which gives you secure access to specific services from off campus. This guide tells you how to install and use our new VPN.

Templeman Library

We’re fully open with complete open access to books, study spaces and a reservation service. Please wear a face covering in the Library, and use the hand sanitiser and wipes especially when using shared equipment (you should see them nearby).

Our Covid 19 update has full details of available services.

Find out now so you don’t miss out!

Get to know what’s on offer now so you can take advantage of services straight away. Here are 3 ways you can make sure you’re all set study success.

Check out our essential guides to help you get started
Take the Library and IT e-induction in Moodle
Take the Templeman Trail – explore the Library with the Actionbound app

Just for you

Finally, we have some great recreational reading on display in the Library Café and online in our welcome (back) reading list. The list has a mixture of e-books and physical books. We hope you enjoy our recommendations!

Best of luck for the year ahead. Don’t forget we’re here to support you and help you make the most of the IT and Library resources on offer. We look forward to seeing you soon.