Frazzled Cafe at NorthWest PGR

Frazzled Cafe at NorthWest PGR

(Open to the students and staff of the University of Salford and Huddersfield ONLY)

Frazzled Cafe are excited to announce a new partnership with the University of Huddersfield and the University of Salford, as part of their NorthWest Postgraduate research support.

We will be providing online meetings for the researchers and staff of Salford and Huddersfield Universities from July 2022.

This partnership aims to support those working within postgraduate research and academia by providing confidential and non-judgmental peer support meetings via Frazzled Cafe trained Facilitators, where people who are feeling overwhelmed by the stresses of their studies, or just simply life, can talk openly, connect and feel heard. Speaking is optional, you are very welcome to just listen.

The University of Salford and the University of Huddersfield are collaborating to bring together PGR candidates from across the two institutions in the North West, supporting a vibrant community in which collaborative and interdisciplinary working can flourish. Diversity and inclusivity are the lifeblood of our Doctoral Schools and we are also keen to promote the mental health and wellbeing of our researchers through our Wellbeing Wednesday Programme and our collaboration with Frazzled Cafe.

These facilitated meetings are held fortnightly catering to around 18 people (half of the spaces allocated to each University) and last for an hour. As there are limited spaces per meeting, please sign up via the booking page to attend, and cancel your place if you can no longer come so that someone on the waiting list can take your space.

You can see the Frazzled Cafe at NorthWest PGR meetings schedule and book to attend via the button below.

Frazzled Cafe Guidelines

To help ensure that our meetings run smoothly and in line with the values of Frazzled Cafe, we ask that all participants agree to follow these guidelines:

• To act with integrity. Please respect one another’s confidentiality. Please do not name anyone or discuss anything you may hear in another meeting.

• To treat everyone, including our volunteers, with respect, consideration, and kindness. Any threatening or abusive behaviour will not be tolerated and will result in removal from the meeting.

• To let everyone have a voice. Please respect one another by giving everybody the chance to contribute without interruption and by not dominating or disrupting the conversation. The facilitator may show a white card to signal the end of a speaker’s turn.

• To listen without offering solutions. Please focus your contribution on personal experiences and not political/thematic concepts. When speaking please focus on what resonates with you personally, not on providing answers or solutions to others.

• To be kind to ourselves and each other. This is NOT group therapy and no one should feel under pressure to say anything. We do hope that in hearing others’ experiences you will feel encouraged to share your own. Whether you speak or not, please treat each other in a supportive and considerate way.

• To welcome people from all backgrounds and points of view. We have no religious, political or commercial affiliations and ask that participants refrain from promoting any that they might have.

• To be present. To benefit fully from the session and stay present in the room, please try to avoid distractions from phones or other devices.

• To ensure you are in a confidential, private environment when you access our online meetings, away from the general public.

We are very excited to confirm our partnership with both the University of Salford and the University of Huddersfield to provide fortnightly, online Frazzled Cafe sessions to support those working or studying within postgraduate research from June 2022.

About NorthWest PGR

We have fully trained local facilitators to the high Frazzled Cafe standards of our online meetings. There is limited availability for spaces which can be booked following the booking page link below.

https://bookwhen.com/frazzledcafeatnw_pgr

Frazzled Cafe Facilitated meetings run for one hour and start with a run-through of our guidelines. This is to ensure confidentiality is respected and that there is a safe environment for those that would like to share.

Each meeting opens and closes with a short mindfulness exercise. You don't need to ever have tried mindfulness before, and your participation in these exercises is completely optional.

After the mindfulness exercise, if you would like to speak, all attendees are encouraged to talk about how they are feeling, or to borrow one of Ruby's expressions, 'explain what the weather conditions are like in your head'.

Attendees usually speak for 1-2 minutes to ensure everyone that would like to has the opportunity to speak. You can of course speak more than once. Speaking is optional. If you would just like to listen, that is perfectly OK. In all meetings, and in between people speaking, we expect some silences and those are normal.

The Facilitator's role is to ensure everyone that would like to speak gets a chance to, that the topics of conversation are appropriate for the space and that attendees are both present and respectful of the space and one another.

After the closing mindfulness exercise and the end of the meeting, we recommend attendees take a few minutes to reflect and decompress before returning to their usual routine.