London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine

For World Mental Health Day 2022, we're reflecting on how our award winning Pentacell program has helped students and alumni build relationships and create communities to support their mental health. Over the course of a school year, each Pentacell group (five students and one alumni facilitator) meets 10 times virtually.

It’s a collaboration between the alumni team and the counselling service, born out of a need for a “non-clinical intervention to increase well-being, belonging, and alleviate stress and anxiety,” says Alice Perry, Head of Alumni Relations and Annual Giving. The feedback has been “phenomenal,” says Alice Perry: “People really appreciated that ability to connect and the friendship they got with it. Someone called it a game-changer, [saying] that they wouldn’t have gotten through the [university] experience without it.”