**UPDATE - PART 2**

Helen Leach, a team member from the School of Business, completed separate walks as she was unable to join the "Fake Peaks" walk on the 29th. Helen walked Monsal Head and Monsal Dale in the Peak District, some of Rutland Water, Hambleton Point, a circular around Groby Pool, good old Bradgate Park and the Osmington cliffs in Dorset, totalling 57.15km and 1033m elevation gain. Helen said the walks were "not always in nice weather but definitely better than the end of the Fake Three Peaks day sounded!".

**UPDATE**

This Saturday, 29th August 2020, the intrepid team of walkers completed their hill walking marathon "Fake Peaks" challenge of 26.2m (42km), walking from Anstey to Old John 5x and from Anstey around Cropston reservoir and back. The team members were Paul Baines, Abbie Sleath, Steve King and Peter Rodgers, all at the University of Leicester School of Business @UniLeicBusiness. Roisin Hewson, also at ULSB, topped the walk for first two laps and Sheryl Heath, Leicester-based fitness guru: https://bit.ly/2DfPCSz), tailed the walk leading them for the final lap.

They completed the walk in 11 1/2 hours (the last five in heavy rain) in aid of #4studentmentalhealth at the University of Leicester. You can see some pictures of the team on their walk by clicking on the large image at the top of this page.

So far, they've achieved 75% of their target donations to raise £2,000. Anyone who wants to help the team reach the target, please support them via the Donate button. Thank you.

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The Issue

1,330 students died by suicide between the 12 months ending July 2011 and the 12 months ending July 2017 according to data from the Higher Education Statistics Agency (HESA). By July 2017, there were 4.7 deaths per 100,000 students in England and Wales which equates to 95 suicides, according to figures from the Office for National Statistics (ONS), which is higher than previous years. Undergraduate students and male students are particularly prone.

What we can do - University of Leicester Student Wellbeing Service

The University of Leicester Student Wellbeing Service is a free, confidential, professional service which offers short term wellbeing and counselling support with the aim of enabling students to engage fully in University life. Once an assessment of need has taken place, students who require the service could access 1-1 counselling sessions, group sessions or yoga therapy dependant on need.

Student Wellbeing Services Impact - Testimonials

"For me, the wellbeing services at UoL have been a fundamental part of my university experience. The counselling and strategies given to me have significantly helped me deal with certain issues that I have faced and I highly recommend the service to everyone!"

" Accessing the counselling and wellbeing service at Leicester university prevented me from terminating my studies. It provided me with a safe place to explore my deepest concerns and practical techniques to manage my stress. My experience has been truly invaluable; I have developed coping mechanisms to aid me now and i'm sure they will continue to do so for many years to come. I have received the highest level of professional care and could not recommend the service strongly enough. I truly am so very grateful to the university for providing such a great service."

How your donation makes a difference

Your donation to the ULSB Three Peaks walk event will contribute to developing groups, workshops or resources in order to promote students' mental health wellbeing .

The School of Business (ULSB) team

A team of eight staff from the School of Business were intending to walk the Yorkshire Three Peaks in aid of Student Mental Wellbeing in June 2020. Recognising that some students find higher education tougher than others, for a whole host of mental health reasons, and especially in the current Covid-19 environment, the ULSB staff felt it important to raise funding for our colleagues in the University's wellbeing service so that they can better cope with the range of mental health concerns that students present to them whilst in study.

We feel that this walk is apposite; in the sense that doing a degree can feel like a never-ending uphill struggle and, for some, too much to handle. Our original intended route, The Yorkshire Three Peaks, is a tough mountain walking challenge of marathon proportions. The route is between 24-26 miles (depending on exact route taken) and an ascent of the three peaks of Whernside (736m) , Ingleborough (723m) and Pen-y-Ghent (694m) a total of nearly 1,600m. For more Information, see: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yorkshire_Three_Peaks.

Our walking team are all passionate about the importance of ensuring student mental wellbeing whilst our students are at university. Because of social distancing restrictions due to the Coronavirus, however, availability of accommodation, and the need for some of the group to shield given their individual circumstances, and the fact that one member of the team is now based overseas, we have now decided that four people will do a route equivalent to the three peaks locally in Leicestershire, which we are calling the fake peaks.

This route will still take a similar amount of time to walk, is approximately 26 miles, and has about 2/3 of the ascent of the real three peaks route. The route is from Ruskin Field in Anstey up to Old John in Bradgate Park (up a height of 212m), 5 times, and once from Ruskin Field around the Cropston Reservoir and back to Ruskin Field, a combined route which is approximately 27 miles long. So our revised route is slightly longer than the Yorkshire 3 peaks but slightly less high.

The other members of the team will each tackle equivalent marathon challenges in their own way. All will provide pictures of their endeavours on this website. In due course, all members of the team hope to undertake the real three Yorkshire peaks route together however we wont now document this on this website.

Links and More Information:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yorkshire_Three_Peaks