Mental health problems among students at universities and colleges are a growing challenge across Europe. Teaching staff are often not sufficiently aware of the issue, or are simply overwhelmed by it in their already demanding day-to-day work. Yet they often play a key role for the students concerned in successfully completing their studies.

With this in background, SUNMENTORS aims to develop flexible training programmes for lecturers at universities and colleges in order to better support students with mental health problems. In addition to the joint development of training modules, the participating European higher educational institutions will also engage in a fundamental dialogue on the design of inclusive learning environments with regard to mental health.

The project is being carried out under the coordination of TU Dortmund University (Social Research Centre/DoBuS), three other universities/colleges (University of Hertfordshire/UK, Panepistimio Patron/Greece; UC Leuven-Limburg/Belgium) and two social education institutions (CIAPE - Centro Italiano per l'apprendimento permanente/Italy and Innovation Hive/Greece).

As part of the kick-off meeting, the participants discussed existing support structures at the participating partner universities. A particular highlight was the visit of Gareth Hughes from Student Minds, a renowned UK student mental health charity. Among other things, he presented the University Mental Health Charter, a guiding framework for universities that want to develop a holistic approach to student mental health (https://hub.studentminds.org.uk/university-mental-health-charter/).

Further information: https://sfs.sowi.tu-dortmund.de/en/research/projects/sunmentors/

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