{"id":13155,"date":"2025-12-08T09:38:17","date_gmt":"2025-12-08T09:38:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.healthnews.ie\/?p=13155"},"modified":"2025-12-09T14:05:54","modified_gmt":"2025-12-09T14:05:54","slug":"how-ireland-leads-the-way-in-whole-campus-health-and-wellbeing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.healthnews.ie\/winter-wellbeing\/how-ireland-leads-the-way-in-whole-campus-health-and-wellbeing\/","title":{"rendered":"How Ireland leads the way in whole-campus health and wellbeing"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<div style=\"background-color:#f2f2f2;color:#32373c\" class=\"wp-block-atomic-blocks-ab-profile-box round ab-has-avatar ab-font-size-14 ab-block-profile ab-profile-columns\"><div class=\"ab-profile-column ab-profile-avatar-wrap\"><div class=\"ab-profile-image-wrap\"><figure class=\"ab-profile-image-square\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"288\" height=\"288\" class=\"ab-profile-avatar wp-image-13158\" src=\"https:\/\/s3.eu-north-1.amazonaws.com\/cdn-site.mediaplanet.com\/app\/uploads\/sites\/94\/2025\/12\/08092233\/vicky-1765185753-Caroline-Headshot.jpg\" alt=\"\" srcset=\"https:\/\/s3.eu-north-1.amazonaws.com\/cdn-site.mediaplanet.com\/app\/uploads\/sites\/94\/2025\/12\/08092233\/vicky-1765185753-Caroline-Headshot.jpg 288w, https:\/\/s3.eu-north-1.amazonaws.com\/cdn-site.mediaplanet.com\/app\/uploads\/sites\/94\/2025\/12\/08092233\/vicky-1765185753-Caroline-Headshot-125x125.jpg 125w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 288px) 100vw, 288px\" \/><\/figure><\/div><\/div><div class=\"ab-profile-column ab-profile-content-wrap\"><h2 class=\"ab-profile-name\" style=\"color:#32373c\">Caroline Mahon<\/h2><p class=\"ab-profile-title\" style=\"color:#32373c\">National Healthy Campus Coordinator, Higher Education Authority (HEA)<\/p><div class=\"ab-profile-text\"><\/div><ul class=\"ab-social-links\"><\/ul><\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\n<div style=\"background-color:#f2f2f2;color:#32373c\" class=\"wp-block-atomic-blocks-ab-profile-box round ab-has-avatar ab-font-size-14 ab-block-profile ab-profile-columns\"><div class=\"ab-profile-column ab-profile-avatar-wrap\"><div class=\"ab-profile-image-wrap\"><figure class=\"ab-profile-image-square\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"200\" height=\"200\" class=\"ab-profile-avatar wp-image-13159\" src=\"https:\/\/s3.eu-north-1.amazonaws.com\/cdn-site.mediaplanet.com\/app\/uploads\/sites\/94\/2025\/12\/08092254\/vicky-1765185774-Catherine-Headshot.jpg\" alt=\"\" srcset=\"https:\/\/s3.eu-north-1.amazonaws.com\/cdn-site.mediaplanet.com\/app\/uploads\/sites\/94\/2025\/12\/08092254\/vicky-1765185774-Catherine-Headshot.jpg 200w, https:\/\/s3.eu-north-1.amazonaws.com\/cdn-site.mediaplanet.com\/app\/uploads\/sites\/94\/2025\/12\/08092254\/vicky-1765185774-Catherine-Headshot-125x125.jpg 125w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 200px) 100vw, 200px\" \/><\/figure><\/div><\/div><div class=\"ab-profile-column ab-profile-content-wrap\"><h2 class=\"ab-profile-name\" style=\"color:#32373c\">Prof Catherine Woods<\/h2><p class=\"ab-profile-title\" style=\"color:#32373c\">Full Professor, and Chair of Healthy UL, University of Limerick (UL)<\/p><div class=\"ab-profile-text\"><\/div><ul class=\"ab-social-links\"><\/ul><\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\n<p>Ireland is emerging as an authority in higher-education (HE) health promotion, with a new framework designed to embed health and wellbeing across institutions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator has-alpha-channel-opacity\"\/>\n\n\n\n<p>Ireland is leading by example in supporting student health and wellbeing. It\u2019s the only country with two national HE health and wellbeing policies: the Healthy Campus Charter and Framework and the National Student Mental Health and Suicide Prevention Framework.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\" id=\"h-whole-campus-approach\"><strong>Whole campus approach<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p>Caroline Mahon, HEA\u2019s National Healthy Campus Coordinator, explains how this is helping generate a wellbeing culture throughout universities. \u201cIt\u2019s about creating conditions where students and staff can thrive \u2014 a whole campus approach goes much deeper than one-off health events. It embeds holistic policies and programmes that create a culture of wellbeing.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Mahon continues, \u201cWe\u2019re shaping future leaders, decision-makers, researchers, engineers, educators and health professionals, future change agents. There\u2019s an opportunity to influence society, and higher education can proactively support wellbeing now and into the future\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\" id=\"h-limerick-framework\"><strong>Limerick Framework<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p>At UL, Professor Catherine Woods and Healthy UL have developed the <a href=\"https:\/\/hea.ie\/2025\/12\/01\/launch-of-the-limerick-framework-for-action-an-international-guide-to-advance-student-and-staff-health-and-wellbeing-on-campus\/\">Limerick Framework for Action<\/a>, a result of the International Health Promoting Campuses Conference, co-hosted by UL and HEA in June.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cThe Limerick Framework helps institutions turn good intentions into measurable action,\u201d explains Woods. \u201cThis document has been developed through consultation with over 500 global experts who were asked what HEIs should be doing to promote health, wellbeing and sustainability.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Expert insight has been distilled into key considerations, including guidance on embedding wellbeing into governance, curriculum, services and the whole campus environment. Key elements include the UN Sustainable Development Goals, promotion of a healthy planet, places and people, and empowering students and employees to reach their full potential.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow\">\n<p>The Limerick Framework helps institutions turn good intentions into measurable action<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n<p>Through the HEA, each HEI has signed up to implement the Healthy Campus Charter and Framework. Since 2020, specified funding has been allocated to institutions to support student mental health and wellbeing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>With <a href=\"https:\/\/hea.ie\/policy\/health-and-wellbeing-landing-page\/healthy-campus-landing-page\/healthy-campus-case-studies\/\">Healthy Campus Case Studies<\/a> to learn from, including UCC\u2019s Everyday Matters, TCD\u2019s Mind Body Boost or ATU\u2019s Breakfast Club, the HEA is encouraging Irish institutions to think globally but act locally, showcasing Ireland as an international leader.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cWe have an opportunity to galvanise the effort and energy of the global higher education sector,\u201d highlights Woods. \u201cBy leveraging the network in Ireland alongside our international partners, examples of good practice can drive truly transformative and measurable change.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The <a href=\"https:\/\/hea.ie\/policy\/health-and-wellbeing-landing-page\/healthy-campus-landing-page\/healthy-campus-self-evaluation-tool\/\">HEA Healthy Campus Self-Evaluation Tool<\/a> allows institutions to measure their health and wellbeing efforts, supported by over 350 resources. This provides an overarching view of ethos, governance and specific health areas, promoting institutions\u2019 accountability to a culture of health promotion.<\/p>\n\n\n<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC \"-\/\/W3C\/\/DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional\/\/EN\" \"http:\/\/www.w3.org\/TR\/REC-html40\/loose.dtd\">\n<html><body><div style=\"text-align:center\" class=\"wp-block-atomic-blocks-ab-button ab-block-button\"><a href=\"https:\/\/hea.ie\/policy\/health-and-wellbeing-landing-page\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" class=\"ab-button ab-button-shape-rounded ab-button-size-medium fb-pixel\" style=\"color:#ffffff;background-color:#000000\">Click here to learn more<\/a><\/div>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Ireland is emerging as an authority in higher-education (HE) health promotion, with a new framework designed to embed health and wellbeing across institutions. Ireland is leading by example in supporting student health and wellbeing. It\u2019s the only country with two national HE health and wellbeing policies: the Healthy Campus Charter and Framework and the National &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.healthnews.ie\/winter-wellbeing\/how-ireland-leads-the-way-in-whole-campus-health-and-wellbeing\/\">Continued<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":163,"featured_media":13162,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5991],"tags":[5994],"class_list":["post-13155","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-winter-wellbeing","tag-winter-wellbeing"],"acf":[],"featured_image_src":"https:\/\/s3.eu-north-1.amazonaws.com\/cdn-site.mediaplanet.com\/app\/uploads\/sites\/94\/2025\/12\/08093453\/vicky-1765186492-GettyImages-2162644435-600x400.jpg","featured_image_src_square":"https:\/\/s3.eu-north-1.amazonaws.com\/cdn-site.mediaplanet.com\/app\/uploads\/sites\/94\/2025\/12\/08093453\/vicky-1765186492-GettyImages-2162644435-600x600.jpg","author_info":{"display_name":"Mica Robertson","author_link":"https:\/\/www.healthnews.ie\/author\/micarobertson\/"},"vicky_index_order":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.healthnews.ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13155","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.healthnews.ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.healthnews.ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.healthnews.ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/163"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.healthnews.ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13155"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.healthnews.ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13155\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":13181,"href":"https:\/\/www.healthnews.ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13155\/revisions\/13181"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.healthnews.ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/13162"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.healthnews.ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13155"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.healthnews.ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13155"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.healthnews.ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13155"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}