At student well-being, we deal with the mental and physical well-being of students, among other things. We do this mainly in the areas of mental wellbeing, social safety and student poverty. At ASVA, we believe it is important that every student has the opportunity to create the optimal study climate for himself or herself and that there are as few obstacles as possible that affect study performance and prevent an enjoyable student experience.
Mental well-being
Several recent studies have shown that students’ mental wellbeing is drastically poor, for instance they have increased chances of burn-outs, depression and other mental complaints. According to ASVA, there are several causes for this, such as the extremely high performance and work pressure. Which we will therefore continue to fight to reduce.
To combat the high prevalence of mental well-being complaints, ASVA is committed to trying to prevent complaints among students by giving them the tools they need to deal with their own mental health from the start of their student life, and when things are not going so well, where they can seek help.
In addition, ASVA also takes a critical look at the care institutions of educational institutions such as student psychologists. We also help students find the right help. For example, if you have circumstances that cause you to delay your studies, such as ADHD or informal care, see if you are entitled to help from the profiling funds.
Social safety
Social safety is becoming an increasingly important concept at educational institutions, and we as ASVA are very happy about that. After all, we believe that every student should be able to feel safe, and should not experience sexual transgressive behaviour, bullying, discrimination, harassment or other unpleasant situations during their time as a student. Because when a student experiences this, it can have many consequences on their studies, but above all on their life.
ASVA tries to prevent undesirable behaviour by making people aware of the consequences of their behaviour. By organising events in cooperation with the educational institutions, such as Social Safety Day, ASVA creates attention and awareness among students, teachers and other people involved in the educational institutions.
Besides prevention, ASVA also looks at what happens after undesirable behaviour occurs. For instance, we look critically at the complaints procedures that educational institutions have in place, in order to ensure the best possible procedures around this issue, which gives the victim a dignified position within the complaints procedure. In addition, ASVA also always tries to help victims of undesirable behaviour by giving advice or assisting them in the complaints procedure. In addition, it is also possible to make a complaint to ASVA (anonymously), where ASVA can investigate the complaint, for this purpose is the social safety hotline.
Student Poverty
Poverty is a problem for the whole of society, so also among students. But unfortunately this group is often forgotten by policymakers, for example, it is not possible for a student to get help from the food bank. But ASVA continues to draw attention to this issue. ASVA is also looking at ways to improve the situation for poor students. For example, it is looking at free loans of expensive textbooks or other schemes that can be beneficial for students who are not well-off.