Wooden apple tree with red and green applecards hanging from it, in a university foyer

From Transition to Culture Change: Embedding Wellbeing Across the University Journey

At Mindapples, we believe that looking after your mind should be as natural as brushing your teeth. Since 2008, we’ve supported people to build the knowledge, skills, and habits that support mental wellbeing. With over a decade of experience working with universities, we’ve co-produced resources with students and staff to meet the real challenges of university life, from pre-entry through to graduation.

Our Wellbeing Competency Framework underpins this work. It distils what we’ve learned into two key strands:

Self-management and resilience
Supporting the wellbeing of others

These competencies are evidence-based and designed to grow with students over time. They’re delivered at critical points such as induction, first-year transitions, peak drop-out times and moments of academic pressure, to help both students and staff develop practical tools for mental wellbeing and relational support.

The approach is grounded in psychology and neuroscience, co-produced with students and staff, and focused on building capability and capacity, not just managing crises. It helps normalise wellbeing in university life, supporting a whole-community culture that’s inclusive, empowering, and sustainable.

Why start before students even arrive?

The research is clear: early intervention makes a difference to students’ wellbeing, confidence, and outcomes.

Pre-arrival and induction programmes that include wellbeing content are associated with better student adjustment and satisfaction (Pennington et al., 2018), and have been shown to positively impact student learning and transition outcomes (Mayhew et al., 2010).
How students are supported in their first weeks at university can shape their sense of belonging and confidence. Well-structured induction programmes have been shown to improve student integration, wellbeing, and learning outcomes (Mayhew et al., 2010).
Peer support is a powerful protective factor but student leaders need clear training in boundaries, active listening, and signposting (Student Minds, 2014) to support others safely and sustainably.

As universities prepare for the new academic year, many are focusing on how to embed mental wellbeing more deeply across the student journey, from transition support to staff development. They’re developing induction content that sets the tone for wellbeing, training peer mentors and ambassadors, and making sure that academic and professional staff feel confident in supporting students. There is also growing momentum for embedding wellbeing into both the academic curriculum and wider student life – including mentoring, leadership opportunities, and structured support outside the classroom- and for building institution-wide approaches that don’t rely solely on stretched mental health services.

The Mindapples Wellbeing Competency Framework directly supports these aims by embedding wellbeing into practical, teachable competencies that give students and staff a shared language, clear role, and useful tools.

Want to find out more?

Whether you’re refreshing your induction plans, preparing peer training, or embedding wellbeing into your strategy, we’d love to support you. Our framework is flexible, co-produced, and designed to align with your existing offer.

Email us: universities@mindapples.org 

Explore the framework: Mindapples for Universities