University champions International Men’s Day by hosting all day conference supporting mental health
Our University Centre put male mental health in the spotlight as part of an event that coincided with International Men’s Day.
International Men’s Day is a global awareness campaign aimed at discussing issues facing males.
The occasion took place at the University and Professional Development Centre in Bury St Edmunds.
A host of guest speakers including current lecturers, former students and guest experts discussed a range of topics under the headline ‘Big Boys Don’t Cry’.
Revd Dr Lesley Crawley is a counselling lecturer at University Studies at West Suffolk College. Lesley was part of proceedings and said: “We think it is super important to talk about mental health and in this case the focus was men’s mental health.
“Male suicide is very high and that is of great concern. There are also concerns about males being victims of domestic abuse and we had talks on what it means to be a man in 2024 in comparison with previous generations.
“People take the mickey out of International Men’s Day as a campaign – but I’m personally a mother of three boys – and I am disturbed by the way people talk about men. It can be divisive and I don’t want my boys growing up in a world where they are endlessly put down because of their gender. So I think this day and these events are important.”
Lesley added: “We also had talks from former students on our counselling programme so that is always nice to see.”
One of those former students was Jody Lee.
Jody, 44, from Mildenhall studied on a counselling degree course at University Studies at West Suffolk College – gaining first class honours earlier this year. Jody now works with Status Creative CIC. In terms of his involvement in this event, Jody said: “I work for a company whose mission is to improve lives through creativity.
“I run poetry workshops (in my job) and I’m currently working with homeless guys in Lowestoft and I talked about that.
On the perception of the campaign by others, Jody added: “When I said I was doing something for International Men’s Day, one of my colleagues joked, isn’t every day International Men’s Day and you can’t argue with that. But, it’s important to talk about these issues as a mental health crisis is happening, particularly with men, so it’s important to raise awareness, talk about it (the crisis) and relieve some of that stigma.”