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The Beach Magdalene College Cambridge

Student Welfare and Mental Health Fund

Magdalene has always taken great care to provide resources for student welfare, but in recent years new challenges in respect of student mental health have emerged and the College has taken care to respond.

Even before the onset of the pandemic, we, like the wider University, saw a significant rise in student demand for counselling. Over the last five years, the need for student access to professional mental-health support has increased significantly.

Changing public attitudes mean our students today are more aware of their mental health and more willing to seek help. The COVID-19 pandemic has clearly had and to some extent, is still having an impact on student wellbeing.

The College’s new Head of Wellbeing joined us in January 2023, thanks to the enormous generosity of Members who responded to our call for support when we created this new post last October. She works closely with the Tutors supported by the College Nurse and the Chaplain, and together they are doing their best to proactively deal with the various mental health challenges our students face. The College continues to contribute to the University Counselling Service to which our students also have access.

However, we want to do yet more to create additional structures to foster student wellbeing and to be able to respond as effectively as possible to help those experiencing acute low points in their lives. This process requires extensive consultation, creativity and financial commitment. Students can face significant challenges from academic workload, social pressures, financial worries, and concerns about their families. Often these challenges are directly linked to early adulthood. We are already addressing the financial concerns with the top-up Bursary Scheme at Magdalene, generously funded by Members and Friends, but the College needs to do even more to help students build strategies to cope with stressful periods, so that they can thrive academically and enjoy their time at Magdalene; and we need to provide them with the very best professional support if a crisis hits.

A gift for the Student Welfare and Mental Health Fund will help us to expand on our efforts to strengthen our dedicated programme of care directed at the wellbeing and mental health of our students. This will be achieved by continuing to fund additional specialist counselling, raising additional resources to enable the Head of Wellbeing to not only address immediate needs but also invest in preventative activities as well as providing funding for additional resources for Tutors, staff, and students to increase awareness of mental health issues.

We feel it is vital that College has the funds available to support the mental health and wellbeing of our students; to equip our staff to deal with the continued fall-out from the pandemic with training and to widen our net of support even more to ensure that our students continue to thrive and enjoy their time at Magdalene.

Donations to support the Student Welfare and Mental Health Fund can be made by choosing one of the options below. 

Supporting Magdalene

Donations to support Magdalene can be made by choosing one of the options below.

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