Credit: The University of Western Australia

According to a study published by the Australian Bureau of Statistics in 2023, 40% of Australians aged 16–24 experienced a mental disorder within the last year. This was a 14% increase compared to the last time the survey was conducted in 2007.

“Many students don’t seek help, and those who do often experience prohibitive barriers to accessing and receiving help,” The University of Western Australia team shared in its 2022 Circle of Excellence Awards submission materials.

To mitigate these barriers and address the increasing student mental health crisis amid the pandemic, UWA launched The Living Room in 2021. It’s a program that provides students with a well-being “safe space” that offers low-barrier, peer-to-peer student support and access to in-house clinical psychologists. The initiative includes activities like yoga and “Pause with Paws,” at which students can take a break from their studies to play with dogs. More than 3,000 students have accessed TLR’s services to date.

To launch the program, UWA’s development and alumni relations team worked alongside its student success and well-being team to secure pilot funding. They raised more than $700,000 in just 18 months during the pandemic through a variety of channels including major giving, COVID-19 relief grants, and student phone appeals.

“The major gift team quickly developed a strong and trusting relationship with the SSW team online to co-develop TLR programs according to various grant criteria. This pivot secured a $170,000 [COVID-19 relief grant] from [the Lotteries Commission of Western Australia],” the team wrote in its CASE awards materials. That grant supported program costs and the training for more than 60 students in peer-support, low-barrier intervention.

The campaign was integrated into 2020 and 2021 annual student telethon appeals, which took a data-driven approach to target donors and raise more than $470,000 from the community for TLR. 

To reinforce the importance of the project, the team also leveraged publicity at events, such as when government ministers visited for lunch, and public relations opportunities like Lotterywest’s grant presentation.

The team’s collective efforts resulted in a total of 700 donors to TLR, with more than 30% of those being reactivated lapsed donors. Some had not given since 2011.

The project won a 2022 gold COE Award. The team wrote, “The single ingredient for success was the openness and trust to work as a cross-university team. It would not have been possible without the dedication and passion of all involved; knowing we were working on something that would have such a dramatic impact on the students we are here to support was empowering and motivating.”