New initiatives will also include online ‘mindfulness’ module
BPP University Law School will be rolling out a series of new initiatives to bolster students’ mindfulness as they prepare to enter legal practice.
From the end of this month the law school will provide students with access to audio meditations that they can download and listen to on their smartphones. Topics include “balancing work and life”, “self-care”, and “getting a good night’s sleep”.
Online modules on issues such as “controlling anxiety” and “mindfulness on the go” will also be available to students.
The law school will trial turning some of its classrooms in London, Holborn and Leeds into “pop-up meditation studios”. Students will be taken through “guided meditation sessions” by surround-sound meditation company The Unwind Experience and taught the benefits of mindfulness. The scheme will be rolled out across the university if successful.
BPP will also introduce new learning technology to identify study patterns that may be impacting on students’ health and wellbeing. This, according to the law schhol, will encourage students “to work smarter, not harder”, with tutors able to review students’ study plans.
Clifford Chance partner and wellbeing advocate Jeremy Connick has also been drafted in to launch a programme designed to help students appreciate the importance of good mental health.
Jo-Anne Pugh, director of programme design and development at BPP, said:
“Our new programmes will introduce students to self-reflection, wellbeing and emotional intelligence. But this is more than a series of new modules. Strategies for good mental wellness will be embedded within all our legal education and training to help prepare and support students for both study and their later working lives.”
The initiatives — which follow National Stress Awareness Day last Wednesday — acknowledge that work-related stress among junior lawyers is on the rise.
Earlier this year the Junior Lawyers Division of the Law Society found as part of its ‘Resilience and Wellbeing Survey’, that almost half of respondents (48%) had experienced poor mental health — a 10% increase from the year before. Elsewhere, an overwhelming 94% of the 1,803 solicitors surveyed experienced work-related stress, with almost a quarter describing the level as “severe/extreme”.
Feeling stressed? You can contact LawCare by calling 0800 279 6888 in the UK.
