Equality & Diversity course timetable

Stress and Anxiety Workshops

Overall Aims of 4 weeks

• Help recognise your signs of stress and anxiety
• To ‘normalise’ stress, anxiety, worry
• To understand the power of our individual attitude towards stress & anxiety
• To foster resilience and coping with stress and anxiety
• Be given the time in our busy lives to consider our individual responses to stress and anxiety

Week 1 - This first workshop will be an opportunity to learn about stress and anxiety and begin to think about our own experiences. Come prepared with a pen and paper as there will be some self-reflective exercises.

• Introduction to stress and anxiety
• Simple breathing technique
• Considering ‘good versus bad’ stress
• Sources of stress
• Difference between anxiety and stress
• Individual symptoms

Delivered by Euan Ambrose from the University Counselling Centre

Joining instructions will be provided on your booking confirmation email.

Come along to this session if you’d like to develop some practical tools for becoming a white ally and build a strong antiracist identity. The training will be split into two 1h sessions. This will allow us to make space for discussion while not making the zoom meeting too long.

While the session may be most helpful to white colleagues, everyone is warmly invited to attend.

YOU MUST BE AVAILABLE TO ATTEND BOTH SESSIONS.

Joining instructions will appear on your booking confirmation emails.

Come along to this session if you’d like to develop some practical tools for becoming a white ally and build a strong antiracist identity. The training will be split into two 1h sessions. This will allow us to make space for discussion while not making the zoom meeting too long.

While the session may be most helpful to white colleagues, everyone is warmly invited to attend.

YOU MUST BE AVAILABLE TO ATTEND BOTH SESSIONS.

Joining instructions will appear on your booking confirmation emails.

Stress and Anxiety Workshops

Overall Aims of 4 weeks

• Help recognise your signs of stress and anxiety
• To ‘normalise’ stress, anxiety, worry
• To understand the power of our individual attitude towards stress & anxiety
• To foster resilience and coping with stress and anxiety
• Be given the time in our busy lives to consider our individual responses to stress and anxiety

Week 2 - The focus of this workshop will be on worry and anxious thoughts and how they impact on our wellbeing. We will look at strategies to help address worries directly as well as activities to distract and soothe us. There will be two relaxation exercises and time for Q&A at the end.

• Introduction – The worried mind
• Progressive relaxation exercise
• How worry and anxious thoughts impact on our wellbeing
• CBT strategies to manage worry
• Assessment and action process
• Soothing and distraction
• Rest and relaxation
• Guided meditation

Delivered by Sarah Hughes from the University Counselling Centre

Joining instructions will be provided on your booking confirmation email.

Stress and Anxiety Workshops

Overall Aims of 4 weeks

• Help recognise your signs of stress and anxiety
• To ‘normalise’ stress, anxiety, worry
• To understand the power of our individual attitude towards stress & anxiety
• To foster resilience and coping with stress and anxiety
• Be given the time in our busy lives to consider our individual responses to stress and anxiety

Week 3 - This week we will take a deeper look at stress and anxiety, work on what our triggers are, and any behaviours that might maintain an anxious state.

• What Triggers anxiety?
• Think more about the physical symptoms
• What maintains anxiety
• Negative Automatic Thoughts
• Intrusive Thoughts

Delivered by Euan Ambrose from the University Counselling Centre

Joining instructions will be provided on your booking confirmation email.

Anxiety and depression is high and we're looking for new ways to take back control of our lives.

New ways to become resilient and bounce back. Whether you've been dealt a good or bad hand in life, now is the time to take charge and bounce back to get closer to the life you want.

Dr. Olivia Remes will be sharing tips on overcoming obstacles in life and becoming resilient, based on research. This is especially important now that we're dealing with a second lockdown and our mental health has been affected in more ways than one.

Her work has been featured by the BBC and she's been invited to give TED talks on anxiety and loneliness.

Zoom joining instructions will be provided on your booking confirmation email.

Stress and Anxiety Workshops

Overall Aims of 4 weeks

• Help recognise your signs of stress and anxiety
• To ‘normalise’ stress, anxiety, worry
• To understand the power of our individual attitude towards stress & anxiety
• To foster resilience and coping with stress and anxiety
• Be given the time in our busy lives to consider our individual responses to stress and anxiety

Week 4 - In this final workshop we will take a look at the various causes of workplace stress, its tell-tale symptoms, and ideas for stress-management and self-care. There will be reflective-practice exercises and time for Q&A.

• Introduction - Managing workplace stress
• Exercise - Counted Breathe
• What are the causes of workplace stress
• Recognising the symptoms of work related stress
• Ideas on how to manage workplace stress
• Final calming exercise

Delivered by Sarah Hughes from the University Counselling Centre

Joining instructions will be provided on your booking confirmation email.

Jenny and Amy would like to invite WSN members to share your thoughts about the Network and help shape the events, activities and networking opportunities you would like to see in the future. They are holding two sessions on the following dates and would love you to join them:

Monday 7th December 12:30-13:00

Wednesday 9th December 12:20 - 13:00

Come along to this session if you’d like to develop some practical tools for becoming a white ally and build a strong antiracist identity. The training will be split into two 1h sessions. This will allow us to make space for discussion while not making the zoom meeting too long.

While the session may be most helpful to white colleagues, everyone is warmly invited to attend.

YOU MUST BE AVAILABLE TO ATTEND BOTH SESSIONS.

Joining instructions will appear on your booking confirmation emails.

Jenny and Amy would like to invite WSN members to share your thoughts about the Network and help shape the events, activities and networking opportunities you would like to see in the future. They are holding two sessions on the following dates and would love you to join them:

Monday 7th December 12:30-13:00

Wednesday 9th December 12:20 - 13:00

Training by Gina Warren & Louise Akroyd

UTBS created retrospectively due to department creating their own bookings. This listing is for registering attendees.

'Come along to this session if you’d like to enhance your understanding of race and racism, increase your confidence to speak about race, and develop tools for becoming an antiracist ally.

While the session may be most helpful to white colleagues, everyone is warmly invited to attend.

The training will be split into two 1h sessions. This will allow us to make space for discussion while not making the zoom meeting too long.

Please only book if you can attend both sessions.'

Joining details will be provided on your booking confirmation email.

'Come along to this session if you’d like to enhance your understanding of race and racism, increase your confidence to speak about race, and develop tools for becoming an antiracist ally.

While the session may be most helpful to white colleagues, everyone is warmly invited to attend.

The training will be split into two 1h sessions. This will allow us to make space for discussion while not making the zoom meeting too long.

Please only book if you can attend both sessions.'

Joining details will be provided on your booking confirmation email.

Dr Olivia Remes (Institute for Manufacturing) PhD found that living in a poor area increased anxiety disproportionally in women. She has also contributed to discussions around coping with anxiety and loneliness during the COVID-19 Pandemic. Dr Chris Rauh's (Department of Economics) recent work has shown that women have borne the financial brunt of the COVID-19 lockdowns in the UK and US.

This event will explore the links between Olivia and Chris’ areas of expertise to examine whether women have experienced an increased financial burden during the COVID-19 Pandemic, resulting in an adverse effect on our mental health and wellbeing.

The zoom joining instructions will be provided on your booking confirmation email.

Come along to this session if you’d like to develop some practical tools for becoming a white ally and build a strong antiracist identity. The training will be split into two 1h sessions.

This will allow us to make space for discussion while not making the zoom meeting too long.

While the session may be most helpful to white colleagues, everyone is warmly invited to attend.

YOU MUST BE AVAILABLE TO ATTEND BOTH SESSIONS.

Joining instructions will appear on your booking confirmation emails.

Come along to this session if you’d like to develop some practical tools for becoming a white ally and build a strong antiracist identity. The training will be split into two 1h sessions.

This will allow us to make space for discussion while not making the zoom meeting too long.

While the session may be most helpful to white colleagues, everyone is warmly invited to attend.

YOU MUST BE AVAILABLE TO ATTEND BOTH SESSIONS.

Joining instructions will appear on your booking confirmation emails.

Life can at times feel relentless, overwhelming and draining. We can become so caught up in our thoughts and feelings that they entangle us in ways that are harmful. Mindfulness is recommended by the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) as clinical trials show that it works to halve the risk of depression in those who have experienced illness (Professor Mark Williams). Mindfulness practice can help us become more present in the moment, increase our awareness of feelings and help us notice signs of stress, low mood and anxiety so we can take steps to address them.

These sessions are offered to help staff experience the benefits of Mindfulness practice as a way of supporting health and wellbeing.

Join Esther Hunt, for a series of six standalone weekly sessions. Book into as many or as few as you wish. No materials necessary, although you may wish to be seated in an upright chair with a blanket around you to maximise the benefits.

Esther Hunt trained as a Mindfulness Teacher with the British Mindfulness Institute and was taught by Dr Patrizia Collard. She is a Registered and Accredited Psychotherapist with the British Association for Counselling and Psychotherapy, a Fellow of the Higher Education Academy and an Affiliated Lecturer in Child and Adolescent Psychotherapeutic Counselling in the Faculty of Education.

Zoom joining instructions will be provided in your booking confirmation email.

We hope you can join us for a BAME Staff Network meeting hosted by network Co-Chairs and committee members on Thursday 21st January at 9.00am via Zoom.

The aim of the meeting will be to update members on priority progress as well as a host specific discussions on:

• mutual respect and grievance policies and
• mentoring

Zoom joining details will be provided on your booking confirmation email.

In November 2019, the University’s commitment to address systemic racism was acknowledged with an Advance HE Race Equality Charter (REC) Bronze award. The  University’s REC submission  openly admitted that there are serious issues that we need to tackle, and we are addressing these through the institutional three-year  REC action plan and many other important initiatives led by students and staff.

We are now over a year into the implementation of our race equality action plan, which is an appropriate point to reflect on what has been achieved so far – and what remains to be done.

Speakers at the event include the Vice-Chancellor Professor Stephen Toope, Pro-Vice-Chancellor Professor Eilís Ferran, Race Equality Champions Dr Mónica Moreno Figueroa and Dr Kamal Munir, and the Chairs of the BAME Staff Network Professor Franklin Aigbirhio and Dr Rabia Dada-Oughton.

Zoom joining details will be provided on your booking confirmation email.

Life can at times feel relentless, overwhelming and draining. We can become so caught up in our thoughts and feelings that they entangle us in ways that are harmful. Mindfulness is recommended by the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) as clinical trials show that it works to halve the risk of depression in those who have experienced illness (Professor Mark Williams). Mindfulness practice can help us become more present in the moment, increase our awareness of feelings and help us notice signs of stress, low mood and anxiety so we can take steps to address them. These sessions are offered to help staff experience the benefits of Mindfulness practice as a way of supporting health and wellbeing.

Join Esther Hunt, for a series of six standalone weekly sessions. Book into as many or as few as you wish. No materials necessary, although you may wish to be seated in an upright chair with a blanket around you to maximise the benefits.

Esther Hunt trained as a Mindfulness Teacher with the British Mindfulness Institute and was taught by Dr Patrizia Collard. She is a Registered and Accredited Psychotherapist with the British Association for Counselling and Psychotherapy, a Fellow of the Higher Education Academy and an Affiliated Lecturer in Child and Adolescent Psychotherapeutic Counselling in the Faculty of Education.

Zoom joining instructions will be provided in your booking confirmation email.

This series of four workshops is designed to help participants build sustainable practices to support their wellbeing and resilience in the face of life's inevitable stresses.

Each session in the series is designed as a stand-alone workshop, so anyone may attend all four workshops or just one on its own. The workshops give participants a chance to explore aspects of wellbeing in the context of their own lives.

Originally run in October 2020, and being repeated due to their popularity, Kate Ahl of the Staff Counselling Centre, will introduce each session - an edited recording of the original event - and will be available to answer questions.

Workshop 1: The Concept of Wellbeing This workshop starts from the premise that wellbeing is not the absence of suffering, but a sustaining engagement with activities that buffer us against life's stressors. In this workshop, we will focus on wellbeing in the context of our own lives, taking in our interactions with others; our engagement with the time and place we live in; our relationship with ourselves; and the values, principles, and beliefs that make life meaningful for us. Through reflective exercises, we will consider what we might like to do differently, to support our long-term wellbeing.

Zoom joining link will be provided on your booking confirmation email.