OK, so the title and subtitle of this issue may pay unintentional homage to a famous continental lager, but the message is relevant to those of us in further education and higher education. This issue reflects on the rich diversity of our worlds, not just the student communities we serve, but also how we seek to meet the diverse range of mental health and student support needs.

As a former Head of the Counselling Service at the University of Aberdeen, I found that a whole-institution approach was crucial in meeting the diverse mental health needs of our students. While collaborating with other key student support teams, we understood that counselling on its own, wasn’t always enough. So we became creative in offering a smorgasbord of additional pointers, such as specialist referral options, online support communities, take-away self-help leaflets and online guides, student mentoring, access to our extensive self-help library, online CBT modules, passes for the fitness centre, workshops on anxiety, self-esteem and procrastination, animation videos on dealing with life issues, an out-of-hours helpline, and so on.

In this issue, I’m delighted to welcome Michael Priestly, from the Charlie Waller Trust, and PhD student, who explains how the CREATE principles of co-production; risk assessment; evaluation; accessibility; togetherness and embeddedness can forge together to present a whole-university approach to supporting mental health in Creating a whole-university strategy for mental health that works. 

PhD candidate, Olga Papadopoulou, shares with us her compelling and impressive literature review in Counselling for university students experiencing mental health issues, which illustrates the widespread published research on the helpfulness and effectiveness of student counselling.

It’s important that, as a journal, we hear from a diverse range of voices and perspectives, so thank you to Veronica Smith who, as a current sex worker, urges therapists not to perpetuate society’s stigma about sex workers in Therapy for a sex worker and, when counselling those in this community, to value their clients as complete human beings.

A warm welcome also to Arran Knight, who argues that, when it comes to the conversation about sexual consent, men and women may need different guidance on sex and sexuality, and that perhaps we need to look more deeply at the path to maturity for young men in Having the conversation with students about sexual consent.

I’m delighted to introduce our two new columnists. Michael Pearson will be waving the equality, diversity and inclusion flag, and in this issue provides his Perspectives of a gay, white male. And Sarah Hinds, wearing several hats as counsellor, tutor, workshop facilitator and student, offers her Ponderings of a counselling tutor.

Finally, our Profile piece returns with a fascinating insight into Desmond Channing, Student Counsellor at Newham Six Form College in East London. Thanks, Desmond, for sharing your insightful journey and why you love what you do, and where you do it.

A final thanks to our regular BACP UC stalwarts, who share what’s happening in our divisional sub-groups covering Colleges, HUCS, Staff counselling and the Research SIG.

I hope you enjoy this issue.

Slainte.

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