Nottingham-based company Blueprint Promotional Products is helping a team from Nottingham Trent University to raise awareness of student stress, depression and anxiety. The company has provided match-funding to deliver campaign promotional products for use in this week’s events.
On Monday 4th and Tuesday 5th March a group of third year undergraduates will take their campaign “Sunshine and Showers – What’s Your Mental Health Forecast?” to the Clifton and Brackenhurst campuses. Activities around their stand include mood and food advice, dietary and physical exercise information and sources of support. Everyone completing a questionnaire around their understanding of mental health issues receives a promotional bag, stress reliever ball, leaflets, pens and badges. The team of seven will sport specially-designed T-shirts and will be on hand to answer questions from fellow students.
The campaign project is part of the Nottingham Trent University degree in Exercise, Nutrition and Health and students are asked to design, carry out and evaluate a health promotion campaign. Hetty-May Wilkins (21), Claire Muir (20), Katie Pytches (21), Rhiannon Horton (21), Judi Richardson (23), Hannah Binns (21) and Glen Beasley (21) decided to focus on mental health because stress, anxiety and depression are a major concern across their age-group. The aim is to reduce student stigma around mental health issues, to highlight the warning signs and to tell them where they can get help.
As part of the project planning, the team randomly surveyed 120 students across the City, Clifton and Brackenhurst sites and found that 97% were unaware of mental health problems.
Hetty-May Wilkins says: “We are really grateful to Blueprint Promotional Products and managing director Mark Wilson for supporting our work. We raised ?350 between us to fund the promotional side of the campaign and Mark agreed to match that amount so we could order the bags, stress-reliever balls and T-shirts. The campaign describes how our mood can be related to the weather – sunshine to happiness, cloud to sadness and thunder to anger – and this shaped our slogan and logo. Blueprint’s products are just right to create the impact we need and will have a lasting effect too.”
Blueprint Promotional Products has been supplying Nottingham Trent University marketing merchandise for over twelve years, and also works with the national charity Rethink Mental Illness.
MD Mark Wilson says: “This is a very imaginative and worthwhile project. The students have understood their subject well and turned that into the kind of promotional campaign we believe in. Nottingham Trent University has used our services for a number of years and it is good to be able to give something back in this way.”
The university team has also received technical dietary support from Notts County Football Club dietician Matthew Lawson. He has arranged for the Club to supply several tickets for a campaign prize draw. Also in the draw is a football signed by the Nottingham Forest first team players.
Published on: March 5th, 2013
