Jaime-Lee Cunningham, a current Level 5 Single (Hons) Psychology student at Staffordshire University, was successful in her election as a Full Time Officer of the Staffordshire University Students’ Union with a Health and Sport ticket.Jaime-Lee comments on her motivation for seeking election to the union and her hopes for her term in office:

“Unfortunately there are a lot of students not getting the full university experience and there are many different reasons for this. A big reason for me running for this role was to get students more involved in university life, and try to make it so there are no obstacles in a student’s way to getting the most out of the opportunities at university.

One way in which I hope to do this is through reducing mental health stigma amongst students – mental health issues can be more common amongst students than many people realise. There is often a lot of pressure put on the individual to speak up about their difficulties, whereas more needs to be done to educate other students about mental health issues and ways in which they can help others, should, for example, one of their friends be struggling. This will hopefully make it much easier for an individual who is struggling to speak out and seek help.

Another change to help improve student involvement is through improving sports facilities and making access to rooms for training easier for clubs, societies and individual students. This would offer more opportunities for students to get involved in university life as often students find it difficult to fit their academic studies and their sports commitments into their timetable.

The biggest benefit for me would be to know I had helped other students get the most out of their time at university. If I was to hear that the reducing the stigma towards mental health campaign had improved someone’s university life that would be fantastic.”

The Staffordshire Psychology team would like to wish Jaime-Lee every success in her new Students’ Union role!