Mental Health Awareness Week

Mental Health Awareness Week

This week is Mental Health Awareness Week and we are launching our new guide to mental health resources in the LRC. In this, we highlight some of our books on topics such as anxiety, confidence and self-esteem, depression, eating disorders and stress which may be of help. We also recommend a list of moodboosting books and some titles about mindfulness. See a quick preview below.

If you would like a copy of the leaflet, please come in to the LRC and pick one up. We will also make this available on our moodle pages as a pdf.

Mental Health Awareness Week display (with new guide)
Photo: Peterborough Regional College

Some organisations with useful resources

BBC3's Things not to say to someone with depression video features young people who suffer with depression talking about responses they don't find helpful.
Rethink.org (Rethink Mental Illness charity) has a student toolkit to help young people look after their mental health.
Student Minds is a mental health charity for University students and has it's own blog.
Mindfulness for Students may be useful for those of you wanting to find out more about this technique to help with stress and building resilience.
Mind is a mental health charity for all ages with lots of online support and advice. You can read stories and experiences here of people who have battled with mental illness and what has helped them.

Finally for those of you studying mental health as part of your course, our e-resource Issues Online (available from our electronic resources page using your network login details) has a range of e-books and articles on issues such as self harm and suicide, body confidence, anxiety and stress and understanding depression.

National No Smoking Day - and how do I know which websites to trust?

National No Smoking Day

Yesterday was National No Smoking Day. Several courses include looking at smoking as a topic in their courses and many use websites. I am often asked by students how to tell which websites can be trusted so I thought I’d use this topic as an example.

Smoking and tobacco websites

So…. if you were doing a project on smoking and tobacco, which of the following websites would you trust and use as a good source of information for your assignment? Not all of these are ideal.

www.ash.org.uk  (Action on Smoking and Health – charity)

www.gov.uk/government/policies/smoking   (UK Government website)

www.bmj.com/specialities/smoking  (British Medical Journal)

www.nicorette.co.uk  (company selling products to help give up smoking)

www.niquitin.co.uk  (company selling products to help give up smoking)

www.bhf.org.uk/smoking   (British Heart Foundation)

https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/healthandsocialcare/healthandlifeexpectancies/bulletins/adultsmokinghabitsingreatbritain/2015  (Office of National Statistics)

www.blf.org.uk  (British Lung Foundation)

http://www.givingupsmoking.co.uk/  (E-cigarette company)

https://www.nhs.uk/smokefree   (NHS site)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tobacco_smoking  (Online wiki)

How to decide which smoking websites to trust and which can I use in my assignments?

I often ask students if they had a choice between using the NHS site or the Nicorette site, for example, which would they use? 

Most would reply the NHS site and when asked why, would say that Nicorette site want to sell their own products. Therefore they won't give an unbiased or objective view of how to give up smoking. Therefore, I would probably not use this site, even though some of the information may be correct.

www.givingupsmoking.co.uk  is another example where author of the website (which is not very obvious) is promoting e-cigarettes rather than giving a balanced view on smoking and giving up. 

Public domain photo
http://www.publicdomainpictures.net/view-image.php?image=126056&picture=cigarette-butts

Web extensions

Did you know that .co and .com sites can be set up by anyone. That doesn't mean they can't be trusted but there are no checks. You know you can trust .nhs sites. They are British and must be from an NHS institution. Other trustworthy website extensions are .gov (as in Office Of National Statistics), .org (as in British Heart Foundation) and .ac (a school, college or University like PRC) as these extensions can only be registered to genuine government departments, charities and organisations or academic institutions.

Wikipedia

Wikipedia is never a good option for your college work, because anyone can write Wikipedia articles and therefore you cannot tell if the information is trustworthy.

Journal sites

British Medical Journal is a professional journal with articles written for and by GPs, consultants and other medically trained staff.  The content is checked and only qualified people contribute. This site can be trusted – but you might have problems understanding it!

Quitting smoking projects - use the About section

There are lots of different sites for projects promoting giving up smoking and you will notice that a lot of them have a NHS logo on them. This would suggest that the site is approved by the NHS or that they have been working in partnership with them. They can probably be trusted. Read the About section of any website to see who the author of the website is.

With so many good quality sites available, why would you bother with those which may not be so trustworthy or objective? For College work I would concentrate on organisations like charities, the NHS and government websites. PRC Library+also have an e-book on Issues Online about smoking and tobacco - accessible from our Moodle pages.

Whatever you use, remember to put the details of the website in your reference list at the end of your work.

Celebrating Diversity

Diversity Day

Next Thursday is the College’s Diversity Day event when everyone focuses on celebrating the variety of backgrounds and cultures within College as well as raising awareness of the 9 protected characteristics (age, disability, gender reassignment, pregnancy and maternity, race, religion or belief, sex, sexual orientation). Library+ will have a stand there so do come and talk to us and have a look at our resources and marriage ceremonies of the world quiz.

The Equality Act 2010

The Equality Act 2010 legislates against discrimination (including indirect discrimination), harassment and victimisation because of these characteristics as well as making sure adjustments are made for disabled people to ensure they have equal access to services. (Only this week, someone won a case in court ensuring that more is done to ensure disabled people are better able to use buses).

Library Resources

In the Library we have various books which cover subjects such as racism, disability, gender, marriage and partnership, religion and human rights.
The Issues series is a good starting point for a whole range of topics like these and are well used as they are a good introduction to some very current and relevant issues discussed on the news and in society. They contain a selection of articles which are short and easy to read.

Issues Online e-book

However, we not only have these in print but also have online access to these with extra material through Issues Online  from the Electronic Resources page (under Library+ on the menu bar) on Moodle. Just use your network ID and password to access these e-books or to search by subject either inside or outside College. The resource includes extra material such as videos, graphs and also curriculum/ assignment ideas for tutors.

We also subscribe to the Equality Review magazine which can be accessed online from Moodle. Login details can be found there with the relevant link.

Videos

To finish, we've found 2 videos for you.The first is a collection of snippets from BBC3 interviews with disabled people called Stupid Questions not to ask Disabled People. (There are also other similar videos available for other protected characteristics).

The second video is a more light-hearted look at the topic of gender discrimination. It is a spoof public information video (from the 1940s) by Harry Enfield. Enjoy!