香港六合彩精准资料

A university counselling service is celebrating securing half a million pounds of funding to expand Welsh language mental health support for students across the whole of Wales.

Bangor University鈥檚 Counselling Service, one of our organisational members, is leading a project that will develop a range of extra services for Welsh speakers over the next 10 months.

The money from the Higher Education Funding Council for Wales 鈥� HEFCW 鈥� will help fund support for some of the most vulnerable students, pay for digital mental health resources and enable the creation of a Welsh language network for therapists and mental health practitioners.

Head of Counselling at the university Kate Tindle, a 香港六合彩精准资料 member, said:听鈥淲hen we鈥檙e at our most distressed and vulnerable, it鈥檚 our mother tongue we want to think and speak in.

鈥淎 lot of people in north Wales speak Welsh as a first language 鈥� 60% in the area of Gwynedd where we are based. It will make a real difference to our students and the wider community that we can provide these services in Welsh.

Cultural need

鈥淭here鈥檚 a real cultural need for this project. We can all be a bit reticent to speak up and seek help, so it鈥檚 even more important that people can access help in their first language.

鈥淭his is not just about Bangor University, as we are working in partnership with other Welsh Universities and further education colleges. A lot of mental health provision in the area does fall on our shoulders.鈥�

听

Under Welsh law, universities have a statutory duty to allow students to use Welsh when accessing counselling or mental health support.

Important work

Kate added: 鈥淲e鈥檙e already strong in what we offer in this area and have several counsellors in the team for whom Welsh is their first language. But it鈥檚 lovely to be able to do more. This is an important piece of work for us and we鈥檙e really pleased to get this funding."

The project will include creating online mental health resources aimed at Welsh-speaking students, in accessible and easy-to-understand Welsh.

Dialectical Behaviour Therapy (DBT) Skills training will be offered to Welsh-speaking students across several universities in Wales to help some of the most vulnerable student groups, including those who self-harm or experience suicidal ideation.

It will use an evidence-based model that has been tried and tested at the university.

The project is being run in partnership with Aberystwyth University, University of Wales Trinity St Davids and further education colleges Grwp Llandrillo Menai.