Congratulations to Mig Burgess-Walsh, Senior Lecturer at GSA on winning the University of Surrey's Vice-Chancellor's Award for Wellbeing, Health and Safety.
The Award for Wellbeing, Health and Safety is awarded to an individual who has made an exceptional contribution to improving the health and safety performance of either their section or a major part of the campus, whilst still managing their own workload; or who has demonstrated their support to the health and wellbeing of colleagues and students particularly during the pandemic. In doing so, the individual’s efforts are over and above normal core duties and has had a direct impact on enhancing the safety of working environment of students and/or staff or visitors to the University of Surrey campus, or the health and wellbeing of staff and/or students.
Mig Burgess-Walsh, Senior Lecturer at GSA, proudly uses her own experiences to positively inform her advocacy around mental health with students and in the theatre industry.
In 2022, she became a qualified mental health first aid instructor with Mental Health First Aid England, and she now teaches the two-day adult mental health first aid course and the champion course at the University and within the theatre industry. This experience directly feeds her teaching of GSA students and her work as a Personal Tutor.
In 2019 Mig created Blackout, an immersive installation showing what it is like to have bipolar disorder, and she is now applying for funding to produce a VR version for use in further teaching. Among her other achievements, she has authored two industry guidance notes on mental health and wellbeing, and was Creative Award winner 2022 with Industry Minds, the National UK Mental Health Charity for the Arts.
Mig's win makes it the 2nd consecutive year that a GSA staff has won the University of Surrey's Vice-Chancellor's Award for Wellbeing, Health and Safety, as GSA's Technical Theatre Manager Sarah Sage won the award last year.
**Originally published by the University of Surrey here**