Got a wellbeing story, idea, or event to share? Submit your article to Better U and help inspire the Flinders community!
BetterU (formerly the Student Health and Wellbeing Blog) is Flinders University’s central news and wellbeing hub for students.
While the site is managed by the BetterU team, our vision is to become a true community magazine – a platform where students, staff, and researchers share their own insights on how to build a good life.
Thus, we are opening the doors and inviting you to contribute.
Who can submit?
We welcome submissions from all corners of the university:
- Students: From any discipline or year level.
- Staff: Both academic and professional staff who support the student journey.
- Groups: Clubs, associations, and research teams.
What we are looking for: Filling the Pillars
BetterU takes a holistic view of wellbeing, encompassing 4 pillars: Body, Mind, Spirit, and Together. As the psychologist in the team, my focus tends to be on the ‘mind’ pillar. But we are actively seeking voices to help us build out the other pillars of wellbeing, as well as the skills for being a successful student:
🤸♂️ Body (The Physical): We need your practical tips on nutrition, physical activity, sleep hygiene, and sustainable health habits.
👫 Together (The Social): Share insights on building community, navigating relationships, and finding belonging at Flinders.
🧭 Spirit (The Meaningful): Explore stories on finding purpose, clarifying values, and personal growth.
👩🎓 Study & Learning: Share your academic survival hacks, from beating procrastination to mastering exam stress.
Types of posts might include:
✅ The “How-To”: Share practical, evidence-based actionable tips on things like nutrition, physical activity, sleep, budgeting, or finding balance.
✅ Lived Experience: Share a personal story about overcoming a challenge, navigating university life, or managing mental health. Stories of growth and resilience are highly valued.
✅ Spotlights & Showcases: Are you part of a club, a research team, or a service students should know about? Tell us how you support the community.
✅ Reviews: Have you read a great book, listened to a helpful podcast, or used an app that improved your wellbeing? Write a short review explaining why it worked for you.
✅ Event Promotion: If you are running an event that supports student connection or health, we can help you get the word out to our readers.
✅ Research Translation: If you are a researcher, we can help you “translate” your findings into practical, relatable tips for a student audience.
We are flexible with format. You can submit:
- A fully formed draft: A written article (max 2000 words) ready for review.
- Rough notes or dot points: Just send us the key facts or ideas, and our editorial team (i.e. Gareth) can help shape them into a post for you.
- Multimedia: We’d love to extend into more diverse formats so if you have relevant self-created photos, videos (YouTube links), audio clips, or even social media excerpts, we’d be interested.
- Research publications: If you have published research relevant to wellbeing, we can help you summarize or “translate” it for a student audience.
- Relevant assignments: Did you write a great paper on a wellbeing topic? We may be able to adapt university assignments into articles (provided you have permission from your Topic Coordinator).
And those are just some initial ideas. We are keen to hear what kind of content you might like to create.
If you just know you’d like to create something, but don’t know what yet, get in contact with us (see below) and we can send you a content creator guide which will help you build out your idea.
The Submission Process
We want to keep this simple. You don’t need to have a finished product to reach out.
⭐ Step 1: Email us at betteru@flinders.edu.au with your idea, draft, or concept.
⭐ Step 2: One of the team will reach out to chat about the best way to present it.
⭐ Step 3: We will help you go from idea to published content.
Where will it be seen?
If content creation goes to plan, your content will be published on the BetterU website and permanently archived on the Student Health & Wellbeing blog. It will also be circulated via our weekly newsletter, which reaches over 2,600 students and staff.
A note on Student Placements with BetterU
In 2025 we started offering student placements with BetterU.
The first cohort of students, from public health and social work, that went through those placements created some great stuff.
The invitation extended in this post is for voluntary contributions, not placements.
But if you are a topic coordinator interested in discussing the possibility of us hosting some of your students on placement, get in contact with me, gareth.furber@flinders.edu.au, to discuss options. You can have a look at our 2026 Placement and Volunteer Guide if that helps give you some context.
