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SADAG and UFS Student Counselling and Development launch 24/7 healthline

26 August 2020 | Story Xolisa Mnukwa | Photo Pixabay

Mental health is a crucial component for a healthy and happy life, as it directly affects how we think, feel, and behave. Mental health also determines how we manage stress, cope with challenges, relate to others, and contribute to our community.

As noted in the University of the Free State (UFS) #WellbeingWarriors campaign, heightened negative emotions during the COVID-19 pandemic are normal. You might experience feelings of anxiety, fear, sadness, helplessness, anger, and confusion. Your thoughts can also increase negative emotions, but thoughts are not always reality. Therefore, it is best to educate yourself.

According to Dr Melissa Barnaschone – UFS Director for Student Counselling and Development (SCD), the South African Depression and Anxiety Group (SADAG) will establish and enhance the mental-health support services offered by SCD and Careways as from 1 September 2020 in the following ways:

- SADAG will extend SCD services by offering a dedicated UFS student mental health careline, which is free and accessible 24/7 to all UFS students. This will ensure that a constant means of mental-health support is available to UFS students.

- Careways will serve as an extension of the emergency services offered by SCD.

Dr Barnaschone further explained that SADAG is working closely with the university to assist identified students, who will benefit from longer-term counselling offered by the SCD in order to continue with their therapeutic process. SADAG will also offer further support to students while they wait for their appointments with SCD.

This helpline will provide containment, crisis intervention, and support, as well as referrals to mental-health professionals and other psychosocial resources for all students on all the UFS campuses.

students also have the option to contact SADAG by email or SMS for counselling assistance.

Counselling for both the SADAG and Careways services will be available in the various South African languages.

Dr Barnaschone reiterated that the SCD will continue with all the services and resources currently offered by the department, and that these additional counselling services will serve as an extension of the SCD, assisting them with patient capacity and reducing the waiting period for students to receive adequate mental-health support and counselling.

“As we are all navigating the uncertainties and changes that are taking place within our environments, it is vital to remember that we are all human and that we are feeling overwhelmed, stressed, or anxious. We need to keep reminding ourselves and each other that this is not a hopeless situation, and when we feel that we need help, all we need to do is ask for it. We are all here to support each other,” encouraged Dr Barnaschone.

See attached poster for more information.

News Archive

UFS receives research grant focusing on enablement of non-profit organisations

2011-01-20

Prof. Mabel Erasmus

The University of the Free State (UFS) has received a research grant to the value of R1,1 million from the National Research Foundation (NRF) to conduct research on community engagement, with the emphasis on knowledge as enablement – a Non-Profit Organisation (NPO) focus.

This was the first time the NRF had requested applications for research with a focus on community engagement (CE). With the grant, the UFS has become one of the first recipients of a research grant that focuses on community engagement.

The overarching research question that will be dealt with is how Higher Education Institutions (HEI) and the NPO sector can establish long-term, research-based collaborative engagements that will be mutually empowering and enabling through joint, reciprocal knowledge-based activities and capacity building.

The contention that this proposal is based on, is that HEIs have limited knowledge of the NPO sector and thus are unable to be fully responsive to the challenges that NPOs face. What is more, it is very likely that staff and students from HEIs do not have an adequate grasp of the experiential understanding, contextual community knowledge and practical know-how that NPO practitioners have, and hence do not appreciate the crucial contributions that they can make with regard to meaning-making processes aimed at improving some of the harsh South African realities.

According to Prof. Mabel Erasmus, Associate Professor and Head of the university’s Division: Service Learning, which submitted the research proposal to the NRF and is the grant-holder, the university would like the information generated by the research to be beneficial to both HEIs and the NPOs. “Knowledge regarding NPOs, specifically their challenges and information about what they are doing, will be invaluable to HEIs. At the same time, the research must benefit the NPOs with knowledge to improve their practice and strengthen their functioning.

“The research will take place in close collaboration with the NPOs, as their inputs are crucial. The research will thus not be ‘about’ them but ‘with’ them.”

“We do not want to send our students for community-based education or as volunteers to NPOs year after year and it does not mean as much to them as these organisations would hope for. With the research process we would like to strengthen NPOs, to build their capacity and give them our whole-hearted cooperation,” she said.

Funding received from the grant will be applied over a period of three years. Except for the study grants for five Ph.D. students and four master’s students, the grant will further make provision for a number of workshops, a local conference, a publication and presentations at international conferences on this matter. The research team of 22 persons includes academics from other HEIs such as the Central University of Technology, University of Zululand, University of Johannesburg and Monash SA. Several staff members of NPOs also form part of the team, including REACH (Bfn), Childline (FS) and others.

Prof. Erasmus said that the UFS was one of a few institutions that were currently conducting research to this extent on the link between the NPO sector and HEIs within the field of community engagement.

Media Release
18 January 2011
Issued by: Lacea Loader
Director: Strategic Communication (actg)
Tel: 051 401 2584
Cell: 083 645 2454
E-mail: news@ufs.ac.za

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