Spolight on the Mental Health and Wellbeing SIG
The UKAT Mental Health and Wellbeing Special Interest Group (SIG) was created in 2024 to champion wellbeing for both students and staff in higher education. Academic advising is rewarding, but it can also be emotionally demanding. Our SIG exists to ensure that wellbeing is not an afterthought and is central to personal tutoring and advising practice and institutional culture.
Why We Started
We launched the SIG in 2024 as a response to growing awareness that mental health and wellbeing are critical to student success and staff sustainability. Personal academic tutors often support students through challenging times, and we believe that supporting advisors themselves is just as important.
We now have 51 members in this SIG, representing 25 institutions across the UK.
Our Aims
- Raising Awareness: Position wellbeing as a core element of academic advising.
- Creating and Sharing Resources: Provide practical tools and guidance for advisors and institutions.
- Developing new research: Collaboration within our growing community to develop new cross institutional research in the field.
- Building Community: Create a safe, supportive space for professionals to exchange ideas and link with other professional communities.
- Influencing Policy: Contribute to sector-wide conversations about wellbeing.
What We’ve Done So Far
- Toolkit for HE Staff: Developed a comprehensive mental health and wellbeing resource toolkit for personal academic tutors; including a summary of key research in the field, CPD opportunities and published toolkits and approaches for supporting both their own and student mental health and wellbeing. Released January 2026?? on UKAT website.
- Presented at conferences: presented at conferences and institutions, including the UKAT conference 2024 where Liz Herbert and Liz Halstead delivered 2 sessions.
- Discussions and continuous professional development (CPD): Nienke Alberts from Bristol University delivered a session sharing her research on the impact of the Senior Tutor on the wellbeing of academics taking on this role.
- In our first session this year we invited Sarah Donkin from Hull University (thanks so much Sarah!) to lead a session on Trauma Informed practice in HE. Participants were able to learn what we mean by trauma and trauma informed approaches and consider how trauma may impact behaviour and engagement in personal tutoring. We explored the potential benefits of trauma informed approaches for students, staff and learning environments and Sarah shared examples of trauma-informed practices. At the end SIG members were able to reflect on their own contextual experiences and identify potential challenges and opportunities for integrating trauma informed approaches into their own practice.
- SIG members were invited to share their ideas for collaborative research in a Padlet and to join our new research working group will meet for the first time in January 2026.
- Collaborations: Work with sector partners (e.g.,Trauma Informed Network) to align wellbeing initiatives with student success strategies.
Continued development
- We continue to build a Community of Practice: Building a network of wellbeing champions across institutions.
- New Resources: Creating guidance on trauma-informed advising for staff.
- MHW webinar planned, led by Jo Augustus who will be sharing her research (2025).
- We have set up a research interest group which meets separately and are planning 2 cross institutional projects starting in 2026.
Voices from the SIG
“Our goal is to make wellbeing a shared responsibility across higher education, not just for students, but for the staff who support them every day.” Elisabeth Herbert
“This group is about connection and collaboration. Together, we can create practical tools, resources and new research that make a real difference to advisor wellbeing.” Nienke Alberts.
Want to get involved?
Join the Mental Health and Wellbeing SIG and help us shape a culture where wellbeing is at the heart of academic advising.
Next SIG meeting: Friday, May 22, 2026 - Online meeting.
Please contact Nienke Alberts Nienke.Alberts@bristol.ac.uk or Elisabeth.herbert@ucl.ac.uk if you are interested in joining our research group and we will share the dates and invites.
Find out more and sign up here: https://www.ukat.ac.uk/community/special-interest-groups/mental-health-and-wellbeing