Wellbeing and Mental Health Strategy

Western Sydney University is a culturally and socially diverse health-promoting university. We promote health and wellbeing by providing a safe, supportive and healthy environment to enable all university community members to flourish.

As a health promoting university, this strategy promotes university-wide education, growth and change to generate learning and working environments that are safe, stimulating, satisfying and enjoyable. The Ottawa Charter (WHO, 1986) was influential in shifting health promotion away from problem-oriented individual interventions to a holistic approach.

Western Sydney University is grounded in a normalising philosophy of health and wellbeing and uses a dynamic and strengths-based support model that recognises and responds to distress and supports those with illnesses.

Western proudly celebrates this third revised version of the original Mental Health and Wellbeing Strategy launched in 2012. The strategy seeks to build on previous strategies through an approach which embeds student and staff mental health and wellbeing responses across the whole university. Strong leadership, appropriate partnerships and a long-term commitment are needed to facilitate this unified approach to continuing innovation and evolving responses to student and staff mental health and wellbeing.

The 2022–2026 Wellbeing and Mental Health Strategy identifies systemic opportunities where staff and students can co-create strategies and plans to:

• recognise the innate resilience of community members
• promote safety
• promote wellbeing
• prevent illness
• support those with illnesses
• respond appropriately when people are distressed

Please review the full Western Sydney University Wellbeing and Mental Health Strategy 2022-2026.