This week Addam Merali-Younger chats to us about the lack of representation in the student mental health sector, and how this creates a barrier. Addam is training to be a counsellor and he also works in the wider student mental health sector with an interest in diversification. Addam explains how “you look at the whole sector and everything is based on research by quite a non-diverse audience, delivered by teachers who are non-diverse to a relatively non-diverse group”. Aneeska and Addam discuss how we can make the sector more inclusive, representative, and non-oppressive. Addam explores how “counselling should be able to be accessed by everyone so why should it not be delivered by everyone?” He powerfully explains the burden minority students face in trying to bring about change. “It’s all well and good having decolonisation work and anti-oppressive practices in name, but if the expectation is on the students to be a disruptor to try and feel a sense of more belonging, there is a need to recognise how emotionally and physically exhausting that is. But if the establishment actually did a bit more work in the first place, then people wouldn’t need to disrupt things in order to feel a sense of equity”. Check out the episode for more.
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