Katy Homewood has returned to the University of Gloucestershire to undertake a masters in Sports Communications and Digital Media, after receiving a Bachelors in Sports Journalism. This year though, she decided to take on an important role in being the university’s ‘Disability and Mental Health officer’.
She said that one of the main reasons why she took on the role was to “give back” to the services that have previously helped her.
Now Katy, having been elected, is working on her first campaign which she plans to run throughout lockdown. Her aim is to check in on students and make sure that they are keeping on top of their mental welfare and physical wellbeing.
This week she has been promoting a ‘get up and go week’ on social media. In her posts she has been letting students know about the little walks they can go on in Cheltenham and Gloucester that are not too far from the university’s campuses. In future weeks she plans to discuss other forms of self-care like pampering yourself and eating healthily. She hopes that this will help students through lockdown.
After Christmas, she plans to do mental health awareness weeks. These will give more visibility to mental health conditions that people might not know much about. She gave the example of talking about Post-traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) one week: “It’s largely associated with people who have worked in the forces but actually so many people can suffer from it”.
Katy also responded to Cheltenham MP Alex Chalk’s recent comments on mental health where he stressed the importance of exercise. She said: “Exercise has been proven to be fantastic in helping mental health conditions such as anxiety. While everyone should try to help themselves, the facilities should also be made available and known to students to provide support”.
Despite Katy’s campaigning proving to be quite time consuming, Katy says she stays motivated due to the fact that she thinks she gets “as much out of it as [she] puts in.”
