Published: March 10, 2021
2020 has been a roller-coaster of a year for everyone whether you are a student, lecturer or part of the university teams such as cleaners, office staff and security.
For me 2020 was the best and worst year of my life. Just before Covid-19 hit, my mum got ill and before we all moved to online learning, I had to spend the first few weeks of university taking her to the hospital for different scans and blood tests.
On 8th March 2020, my mum got rushed to hospital but came home the same night as they couldn’t find out what was wrong. On 9th March, while at sat in the Media Hub (I miss being on campus), my dad rang to tell me that my mum had been rushed back to urgent care again. I spoke to Jenny the Programme Leader for my course and she told me about the university Wellbeing team and how to access it, a week later we then moved to online learning.
Two days before Boris put us in lockdown my mum got diagnosed with Pancreatic Cancer, it was one of the worst days of my life. When I found out I emailed Jenny and she told me to stay positive.
Jumping forward to September 2020 and returning to my course, I was glad to have the online hybrid approach for learning. During my first lecture back with Jenny, I filled her in on the events that happened over the summer and she put me in touch with the Wellbeing team right away.
I had an online interview to start with which covered what I wanted from the team, I was then informed about Silvercloud, a platform which provides online CBT (cognitive behavioural therapy) programmes that are tailored to your specific needs, which did help.
Sadly, my mum passed away in November. I pretty much started counselling with Danielle right away and I found this service so helpful. After my four weeks she then told me to take time to grieve and if I needed to go back, the option would always be there.
If I didn’t come to the University of Sunderland, I wouldn't have had acccess to the counselling and online services that were provided by the team. Danielle was amazing and i'm not sure if I would have even accessed these types of services if Jenny didn't refer me.
You can access the services of the Wellbeing team through your programme leader and your personal tutor and you can also use the services of the SU. The website also provides lots of information and access to the online services that are available 24/7.
My best memories are getting to spend the last 8 months with my mum trying to be the strong independent women that she was and the worst memories were losing her.
Kayleigh White
BA (Hons) Social Media Management
Topic: Student lifestyle