The University of Birmingham has teamed up with Fika to make app-based mental skills training available to students.

The collaboration will see a mental skills programme developed by academics at UoB feature on an app for university students across the UK. The MST4Life™ (My Strengths Training For Life™) programme took six years to develop, and was created by a team of sports psychologists and academics at the university in partnership with St Basils, a youth homelessness charity.

MST4Life™ involves a number of different activities targeted at sixteen to twenty-four year-olds, which focus on strengthening ‘the resilience, confidence and coping skills of young people.’ 

Co-creator of the MST4Life™ programme, Dr Jennifer Cumming, explained: ‘Just as we’ve used MST4Life™ to strengthen and empower young people experiencing homelessness, we’re confident in its transformative potential for a whole generation of university students.’

She goes on to discuss the fact that research conducted by Fika has shown that 77 percent of students find transitioning to university life difficult. The aim of the collaboration between the programme developed by the university and the app, therefore, is to tackle this sense of struggle.

Alongside MST4Life™, Fika offers ‘emotional workouts’ to help young people to develop ‘emotional muscle,’ in order to ‘mainstream Mental Fitness by bringing Emotional Education to students around the world.’