All Things Mental Health
We're a mental health podcast, focusing on young minds and students. We bridge the gap between research and lived experience, creating space for new dialogue to emerge. With a recent feature in the Guardian, this podcast is in the top 15% of podcasts shared globally. Partners inc. University of Oxford, King's College London, Student Minds, SMaRteN and U-Belong.
Meet the team! Aneeska Sohal, our Founder and Project Manager. Aneeska is a Trustee for Student Minds and the Head of Strategy for Student Mental Health and Wellbeing at King's College London. Anna Bailie is our Researcher in Residence, with a specialism in mental health and politics. She works with WHO (World Health Organisation) as a Youth Participation Consultant for and Supporter of the Pan-European Mental Health Coalition Working Package on Child, Adolescent and Young People's Mental Health. Our Editor is Saul Devlin, with expertise in radio, music and sound recording.
Head over to our Instagram for more @allthings.mentalhealth, our Twitter @atmhpodcast or contact us at allthingsmentalhealth20@gmail.com
All Things Mental Health
Addam Merali-Younger: Marginalisation in Student Support Services
This week Addam Merali-Younger chats to us about the lack of representation in the student mental health sector, and how this creates a barrier. Addam is training to be a counsellor and he also works in the wider student mental health sector with an interest in diversification. Addam explains how “you look at the whole sector and everything is based on research by quite a non-diverse audience, delivered by teachers who are non-diverse to a relatively non-diverse group”. Aneeska and Addam discuss how we can make the sector more inclusive, representative, and non-oppressive. Addam explores how “counselling should be able to be accessed by everyone so why should it not be delivered by everyone?” He powerfully explains the burden minority students face in trying to bring about change. “It’s all well and good having decolonisation work and anti-oppressive practices in name, but if the expectation is on the students to be a disruptor to try and feel a sense of more belonging, there is a need to recognise how emotionally and physically exhausting that is. But if the establishment actually did a bit more work in the first place, then people wouldn’t need to disrupt things in order to feel a sense of equity”. Check out the episode for more.
Thanks for listening!