We started in 2025 bringing students into the BetterU Newsroom. That continues in 2026 and I am very pleased to welcome Jenny and Jacob.
A quick post to welcome two new students to the BetterU Newsroom!
Some of you might remember that last year, we had a first cohort of student content creators join BetterU. They were on placements as part of Social Work and Public Health degrees.
I wrote about it here. In short, I was stoked to have students creating content for their fellow students. They tackled topics that I hadn’t thought of writing about including art, music, cinema and more.
So I am very happy to be continuing the involvement of students in BetterU’s development.
Kicking off this year are Jacob and Jenny, both from Social Work. We’ve already sat down a couple of times to discuss what they’ll be writing about during their time at BetterU (Semester 1), so I look forward to featuring their content.
In the meantime, I will let them, in their own words, introduce themselves.
First up – Jacob!
Jacob is a Social Work student at Flinders University, currently completing his professional placement with the student wellbeing team. He’ll be writing for BetterU in 2026, translating social work frameworks and wellbeing resources into practical, student-focused advice. Jacob is passionate about integrating lived experience with professional practice to support student mental health. Outside of his studies, he stays active through tennis and hiking, practices mindfulness and enjoys reading psychology and philosophy.
Now Jenny!
Jenny is a social work student currently on placement with the BetterU News Team and the Community Development Program. As an international student, Jenny draws on lived experience of navigating financial stress, study pressures, self-care and relationship wellbeing during university life. Her work focuses on student wellbeing and mental health promotion and brings practical, action-focused approaches to student wellbeing, including financial wellbeing and creative practices such as therapeutic photography. Her goal is to create accessible wellbeing content that helps students take small, meaningful steps to care for their mental health. In her free time, she cooks, bakes, overthinks song lyrics and convinces herself that photography counts as mindfulness.
Please join me in welcoming Jacob and Jenny 🙌
[if you sign in using your FAN and password below, you can leave a comment on this post.]
Whilst student content for BetterU is created as part of formal placements, any member of the Flinders community is invited to create content for BetterU.
In fact, one of our goals over the next few years is to feature a lot more content from the community, that is, make BetterU a community discussion about how balance wellbeing and self-improvement.
You can learn more about contributing content at this post.
Welcome Jacob and Jenny!
Big Hi to Gareth (A Big Thank you for your advice), Jenny and Jacob – i am gi. I am somewhere lost between second and third year as a Social Work undergraduate. Jacob, I feel, is very much where I am at being over 50 and having lived experience in every hard knock. I want to develop policies and frameworks for the integration of Lived Experience Support Workers, (particularly important with the Neoliberalism that feels to be way of the world) when working with physical, mental and substance abuse clients. I will be following your articles with interest and good onya with all that you do around student wellbeing, it alleviates a lot of stress as I can attest to, which when removed, makes study more engaging!