Promoting Mental Health and Wellbeing in Higher Education: Supporting Academic Heads of Department

This project explores the mental health and wellbeing of heads of academic departments (HoDs) and the institutional policies and practices in place to support them. Research indicates that HoDs are particularly vulnerable to work-related stress (Floyd & Dimmock, 2011; Creaton & Heard-Laureote, 2019), but that leadership and management programmes provide inadequate preparation and support (Eley, 2013; Floyd, 2016). This project seeks to analyse the specific mental health and wellbeing needs of this group of academic staff, in support of national initiatives to promote institution-wide approaches to mental health and wellbeing in higher education (Universities UK, 2017).

£6000 internal funding from Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences