This type of membership is aimed at staff who have direct contact with students, in either a school, college or university, and through this professional role have an interest in mental health.
Please don't be put off by our name - we are open to membership across the education sector, and hope that this will bring about better communication and transition support for students with ongoing mental health conditions.
While we do, as an organisation, touch on matters of staff mental health and wellbeing, this is not our primary focus, and so this membership is not aimed at HR professionals or similar.
We welcome Specialist Autism Mentors who are funded through DSA to apply as Associate members if they have an interest in student mental health. However, please note that this would not make you eligible to provide Specialist Mental Health Mentoring (SMHM), or to attend our monthly meetings for SMHM.
To become an associate member of UMHAN, you must meet the criteria below and agree to follow our Capability and Conduct Framework for Associate Members. Please read this in conjunction with our pages on language and terminology and our aims.
If you undertake 1:1 work with students with mental health conditions and are eligible to become an Accredited Practitioner you must apply at that level. Please see our Accredited Practitioner page for more information. If in doubt, please contact us.
Criteria
You should:
- Be working in education and employed directly by a university, college or school or the NHS
- Be working in direct contact with students
- For example, as a wellbeing, learning support or disability adviser (without a professional MH qualification), giving careers or transition advice, in a university library, in accommodation services, as a school Mental Health Lead or Education Mental Health Practitioner
- Promote equality, inclusion and the rights of those with mental health conditions studying in education.
Benefits
As an Associate member you will have access to:
- Our termly Associate member meetings
- Our members only online Community Forum
- Our monthly Lunch & Learn Sessions
- Our bank of resources
- And more...!
Please see our membership benefits page for more information.