Who are we? Headucate is one of the most active, and exciting student societies at the University of East Anglia. We started out as a small group of medical students 8 years ago from Norwich Medical School and have since grown to become one of the largest UEA societies, open to any student, from any course. We're proud to be affiliated with the Royal College of Psychiatrists, allowing our members to connect with current medical professionals such as psychiatrists, helping us to further engage with the medical community. We were voted 'New Society of the Year' in 2012/13 by the UEA Student Union. More recently, we were awarded ‘Rising Society of the Year’ at the 2018/19 UEA Student Transformation Awards and in the 2019/20 awards we achieved 'Student Outreach Project of the Year'. We are honoured to have been shortlisted & receive a special mention for a national student award with the National Student Fundraising Association in 2020. Our overriding aim is to tackle mental health stigma and help end discrimination by running small workshops in schools in the Norwich area with children and teenagers to tackle common misconceptions about mental health issues. We do this as currently there is no mental health teaching in schools, and it is thought that about 50% of lifelong mental illnesses are already established by age 14. Most children do not seek the help they need when they need it. Since the COVID-19 pandemic, we have continued to run these webinars virtually through online platforms, reaching over 300 secondary school students within 2 months! What do we do? - We provide our members with all the training they need to run our school workshops [receive a certificate for leading workshops & gain hours towards the UEA award!] - We hold fantastic evening talks throughout the year with top-class speakers on issues surrounding psychiatry, neurology, psychology and mental health - In the past we were honoured to have been chosen to host the Medical School Dean’s Lecture, and have Professor Sue Bailey, the outgoing President of the Royal College of Psychiatrists, speak at our annual keynote event - We conduct research into our school workshops to see how effective they are and there are opportunities to get involved with posters to present at conferences - We also hold socials, a great way to meet people from different courses, as well as talks and fundraising events! Are you a student from a different university? Headucate is based at the University of East Anglia and open to students, staff and the general public from within the local Norwich area, sometimes travelling out to other schools within East Anglia. We have also set up branches now at other UK universities including Birmingham, UCL and Cambridge. If you are interested in setting up a branch of Headucate at your university please contact us at headucateUEA@hotmail.com.