Mental Health and Wellbeing

How we can use what we've learned about the brain to improve our mental health? In this groundbreaking book, neuroscientist Camilla Nord offers a fascinating tour of the scientific developments that are revolutionizing the way we think about mental health, showing why and how events--and treatments--can affect people in such different ways.

This book equips higher education professionals with the basic knowledge and skills to address and respond to students who are struggling with mental health concerns. The authors provide foundational information on the signs and symptoms of the most commons mental health issues they are likely to encounter in their daily work, as well as guidance on how and when to intervene. With a focus on empathy and core listening skills, the book empowers professionals to make effective and positive interventions.

Maybe you have heard the terms 'trauma-informed' and 'restorative' - but how do you go about becoming a trauma-informed, restorative educator? This practical book outlines the values, ideas and neuroscience behind trauma-informed restorative practice and its proven effectiveness. It clearly explains key theories relating to shame, trauma and your autonomic nervous system, and explains how to apply this knowledge in practice. Examples and stories of restorative practice feature throughout to inspire and emulate, as do practical protocols, tools and systems to develop your skills as a trauma-informed educator. Critically, it also explains the personal and professional qualities you need to nurture to truly engage in trauma-informed, restorative practice, with reflection points to aid learning and self-development. Read this book and take your first steps to creating a trauma-informed, restorative classroom - even if your school isn't doing it!

All universities have to produce plans to eliminate the gaps in access, success and participation of disadvantaged student in higher education, setting targets with regards to Global Majority, working class, disabled and student with mental health conditions. In this book, Mike Seal examines the terminology, theoretical debates and positions, identifies the causes of gaps, and evaluates proposed initiatives. He argues that there is an unexamined assumption that higher education is a 'good thing' materially and intellectually, which demonises those for whom this is questionable. The book also highlights the continuing structural and individual discrimination in terms of class, race and disability and a denial of the extent to which higher education is a cause of mental health issues and negative well-being. It uncovers unexamined 'assimilation' models in higher education that expects these students to abandon their culture and communities, despite students wanting to give back to these communities being a major extrinsic motivation, and to embrace a culture that will not embrace them. The book starts from the perspective that contemporary international higher education reproduces existing privileges, and the book goes on to argue that widening participation agendas should recognise the changing nature of academic life through a more inclusive, holistic approach. Seal argues that it is essential to include an informed understanding of how students position themselves in academia and how their identity and academic status is enabled and developed with the support of the university. In order to do this universities need to redefine their purpose and the nature of their relationships with the communities they purport to serve.

e is a central part of our lives and structures our days, and yet often we don’t think about the socially constructed nature of time or how we might reframe our relationship with time and our work in ways that support our self-care and wellbeing. Exploring Time as a Resource for Wellness in Higher Education suggests an alternative way to look at how we structure our time to better support our wellbeing. Drawing on a range of theoretical and personal perspectives, the authors advocate for a reconsideration and reconceptualization of our relationship with time. By sharing their experiences, the authors encourage readers to notice how they spend their time and offer strategies for an intentional focus on the relationship between time, self-care, and wellbeing. Whether it's making time, having time, or investing in time, this book explores strategies and reflections necessary to grow, maintain, and protect wellbeing.

Wellbeing is foundational to citizens' individual and collective ability to acknowledge, address, and alleviate ongoing struggles, shared risks, and the unprecedented challenges of our time. A holistic focus on wellness across campus communities is timely and important, given that national and global justice movements are calling upon post-secondary institutions to address the ways in which education systems have been reproducing dominant narratives, reinforcing systemic discrimination, and retaliating against education leaders who work to disrupt structural inequalities. Leadership Wellness and Mental Health Concerns in Higher Education offers diverse perspectives about whether and how campus leaders around the world are sustaining and advancing health and wellness in unprecedented times and amplifies diverse voices in the exploration of how to advance individual and collective wellbeing in higher education. Covering a wide range of topics such as stress management and burnout, this reference work is ideal for academicians, scholars, researchers, administrators, practitioners, instructors, and students.

Mental Health among Higher Education Faculty, Administrators, and Graduate Studentsaddresses how many academics who experience mental distress or mental illness are afraid to speak out because of cultural stigma and fears of career repercussions. Many academics' reluctance to publicly disclose their struggles complicates attempts to understand their experiences through research or popular media, or to develop targeted mental health resources and institutional policies. This volume builds on the existing studies in this greatly under-researched area of mental health among faculty, administrators, and graduate students in higher education. The chapters' research findings will help institutions communicate about mental health in culturally-competent and person-centered ways; create work environments conducive to mental well-being; and support their academic employees who have mental health challenges. This book argues that discussions of health and wellness, equity, workload expectations and productivity, and campus diversity must also cover chronic illness and disability, which include mental health and mental illness.

With a focus on skills development, this book provides guidance on how to navigate transitions between career stages in higher education and how to maintain wellbeing in the process. In a fast-paced and ever-changing environment, a career path in higher education can demand rapid transition. This book provides comprehensive coverage of the kinds of transitions one may face in higher education and how to navigate them successfully while focusing on wellbeing and self-care. Centred around first-person accounts, the chapters illustrate the key issues around transitions, their impacts and provide suggestions for how to adapt through self-care. The authors offer insights from their own personal experiences, enabling the reader to develop an action plan of their own, or to share with and guide students and early career mentees. The tools and strategies outlined in the book make up a library of resources that can be called upon at any stage of the journey. Written with all career stages in mind, this book will be an essential resource for new and experienced researchers alike.

This book illuminates international voices of those who feel empowered to do things differently in higher education, providing inspiration to those who are seeking guidance, reassurance, or a beacon of hope. Doing things differently comes with an awareness and curiosity to explore what can be. Increasingly, more and more professionals in higher education are choosing themselves, happiness, families, relationships, kindness, and compassion over arbitrary notions of institutional prestige, continuous pressure to overwork, and competitiveness with others. The chapters in this book do more than highlight flaws in the system, they call for proactive engagement in interrupting and reimagining what is broken. The authors share their own experiences as a way of encouraging readers to take small steps towards self-care, to notice their surroundings, and to embrace change as an empowering tool. The focus is on becoming the change we aspire to see, with a collective readiness to instigate positive transformations. Sharing ambitious ideas to encourage change, this book is a valuable resource for those seeking to enhance their self-care and wellbeing in the higher education context, and for those seeking to engage with others in support of these efforts.

This book provides an evidence-based approach to sustainable self-care, anchoring these strategies in individual academic workers' core personal values. It teaches readers how to use their values to leverage self-care strategies into a workable, individualized, and effective map to wellness. Working in the demanding environment of higher education can leave little time for self-care, yet making space for wellness and self-care is essential to creating a creative and innovative environment for academic work. This book shows how to create and successfully implement realistic self-care plans. By identifying core values and using these to develop individualized self-care plans, Sustaining Your Well-Being in Higher Education pushes back against a one-size-fits-all approach while also discussing the role of self-care in academic labor activism and providing strategies for readers to become advocates for better self-care practices within their zones of influence.

Designed to provide academic workers with the skills they need to develop workable and sustainable self-care plans, this book is an invaluable resource for students and professionals working in all areas of higher education.

This book centers equity in the approach to trauma-informed practice and provides the first evidence-based guide to trauma-informed teaching and learning in higher education. The book is divided into four main parts. Part I grounds the collection in an equity approach to trauma-informed care and illustrates one or more trauma-informed principles in practice. Chapters in Part II describe trauma-informed approaches to teaching in specific disciplines. In Part III, chapters demonstrate trauma-informed approaches to teaching specific populations. Part IV focuses on instruments and strategies for assessment at the institutional, organizational, departmental, class, and employee levels. The book also includes a substantial appendix with more than a dozen evidence-based and field-tested tools to support college educators on their trauma-informed teaching journey. 

This volume explores the current state of student mental health and trauma while offering theories and practice of trauma-informed teaching and learning. The interdisciplinary authors gathered in this collection discuss the roles, practices, and structures in higher education that can support the wellness and academic success of students who suffer from the effects of traumatic experiences. Chapters cover topics on teaching traumatic materials ethically and effectively, reading and writing to support recovery and healing from trauma, inclusive pedagogies responsive to systemically inflicted trauma, and developing institutional structures to support trauma-informed pedagogies. This timely and important book is designed for faculty in institutions of higher education seeking to meaningfully cultivate trauma-informed classes and learning experiences for their students.