A critical reflection of student mental wellbeing on the journey towards Social Work qualification
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.56433/85qd9462Keywords:
wellbeing, mental health, graduate and undergraduate students, Student Social Worker, critical reflectionAbstract
Student mental health has been an increasing area of focus within Higher Education (HE) research since 2010 with a number of studies across a diverse range of counties (Hernandez-Torrano et al. 2020). Evidence suggests rising mental health difficulties amongst HE students (Thorley, 2017) and for the first time McCloud et al. (2023) found in a study of several thousand participants that common mental health difficulties such as depression and anxiety were slightly higher amongst HE students aged 18-19 than non-students. The mental wellbeing of students presents a challenging issue for all Universities to respond to and there is increasing scrutiny around how the sector can best support the wellbeing of their students. This critical reflection uses a practitioner research method through considering the authors own experiences of teaching Social Work students on an MA in Social Work course in relation to their mental wellbeing followed by an examination of the literature relating to student mental wellbeing before finally proposing a number of changes to the author’s teaching practice. Whilst the method of this reflection is self-reflective, subjective and focused upon teaching Social Work students, the findings could also be utilised by other academics more broadly within an HE setting.
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