Here at the Advice and Counselling Service we wish to express our recognition of the trauma and distress faced by black students, following the appalling murders of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor and others in the US, alongside the impact of all forms of racism here in the UK and across the globe. The impact on students and staff at Queen Mary University of London is profound.
Our Counselling blog is regularly updated with posts from our team and this week features an article 'Race Includes Everyone', which we hope students will find helpful.
We are committed to improving the diversity of our teams and are currently working to improve our awareness and understanding of the ways in which racism impacts the psychological health of our student population.
Although at the moment we are not able to guarantee that we can offer ethnically matched counsellors for BAME students who would prefer this, we are open to hearing from students and working to help provide culturally sensitive support at this difficult time. All students wishing to access counselling services to help address these, as well as any other issues, are welcome to get in touch using the web-form.
Queen Mary Students' Union have developed a resources page on Black Lives Matter. It includes links to self-care tips.
Students and staff have access to resources through the library (if you have not already registered you can do so here). The library currently has the following relevant titles available as e-books:
Anti-racist organisations working to promote equality and offering a range of support, including psychological support, at the moment include:
If you or someone else have experienced bullying and harassment, hate crimes or gender-based violence, Queen Mary's Report + Support is a platform for accessing support information about specialist services or make a report to the university.
We also have pages containing information about Queen Mary policies and procedures, including information for students accessing the Advice and Counselling Service about confidentiality and data protection.