Inclusion and exclusion, as well as feeling lonely, have continuously been a major contributor to worsening student mental health and university experience.
 
This panel aims to present current research and report on consequences caused by the lack of sense of belonging.
 
We intend to enhance understanding and encourage further investigations for bettering student mental health with the input of the students themselves.

Meet the Speakers

Chloe Casey is a PhD student from Bournemouth University. Her research focuses on the mental wellbeing of postgraduate research students (PGRs). Her PhD study uses a mixed methods approach to explore the wellbeing of PGRs in order to coproduce and trial pilot interventions that are tailored to the students' specific needs. The aims of the interventions are to promote adaptive coping, wellbeing, self-efficacy, and resilience specifically through encouraging peer support and belongingness. Her training is in psychology (BSc) and the interplay between nutrition and behaviour (MSc). Chloe is a member of the British Psychological Society (MBPsS) and the Association for Nutrition (ANutr). She has also been a member of SMaRteN’s student team since 2019, assisting with conference planning, funding panels and student mental health research. 

Dominic Smithies joined Student Minds in August 2017 after a year as the Community and Wellbeing Sabbatical Officer at the University of York’s Students’ Union. Dom takes a lead on Student Minds'  work around understanding & tackling health inequalities, student engagement and co-production. He is also involved in their work with Students' Unions, supporting the campaign groups and equality and diversity. Outside of work Dom is an avid gamer and also spends his time volunteering with Pride In London and the NHS.

Seeta Bhardwa has been the student content editor at Times Higher Education since 2017. She manages a network of student bloggers from all over the world who write about their experiences of studying at university, while creating student-focused content based on the Times Higher Education rankings portfolio and writing comment and advice pieces on student issues. She was previously the deputy editor of Independent Nurse magazine and has a BA in English from the University of Reading.

Dr Manny Madriaga is a Senior Lecturer in Education Studies at Sheffield Hallam University. He has 15 years' experience of research in education. His research interests are on the processes of social exclusion/inclusion related to 'race', ethnicity and disability. Manny is a convenor for Student Access and Experience Network within the Society for Research into Higher Education.  

https://www.shu.ac.uk/about-us/our-people/staff-profiles/manuel-madriaga

Louise Arseneault’s research focuses on the study of harmful behaviours such as violence and substance dependence, their developmental origins, their inter-connections with mental health, and their consequences for victims. She is taking a developmental approach to investigate how the consequences of violence begin in childhood and persist to mild life, by studying bullying victimisation and child maltreatment. Louise also studies the impact of social relationships including social support and loneliness on mental health. Her research aims are to answer questions relevant to psychology and psychiatry by harnessing and combining three different research approaches: developmental research, epidemiological methods and genetically-sensitive designs. Louise’s work incorporates social as well as biological measurements across the life span.
Louise completed her PhD in biomedical sciences at the University of Montreal and moved to the UK for a post-doctoral training at the MRC Social, Genetic and Developmental Psychiatry Centre. She has been working with well-known longitudinal cohorts such as the Montreal Longitudinal Cohorts, the Dunedin Multidisciplinary Health and Development Study and the Environmental Risk (E-Risk) Longitudinal Twin Study, a nationally-representative sample of families with twins in England and Wales. She has also been exploring another important nationally-representative cohort, the National Child Development Survey (NCDS).

Louise was appointed the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) Mental Health Leadership Fellow. Louise’s fellow role with the ESRC includes providing intellectual leadership and strategic advice in the priority area of mental health. It is a broad agenda including engaging research communities, promoting collaborations, advocating for mental health research, championing the co-design and co-production of research and providing advice to the ESRC and other research councils. Throughout the three year fellowship, Louise plays a vital role in championing the role of the social sciences in mental health research. She provides advice on how social science research can best address the challenges that mental health poses for our society, communities and individuals.

Louise Arseneault was elected as Fellow of the Academy of Medical Sciences in 2018 and joined the Academy of Social Sciences in 2019.