The Best and Worst of Times

The start of the academic year is always an exciting time but is also a period of significant and often daunting transition for those taking their first steps into higher education. It was, therefore, welcome news when in June 2018 Minister for Higher Education, Sam Gyimah, announced a new mental health initiative one of the aims of which is to better support students struggling to make the jump from school to university.

It has long been recognised that freshers are particularly vulnerable to mental health issues. Now it is envisaged that a DfE-led working group tasked with considering what role universities can play in supporting new students will identify key recommendations and best practice for secondary and tertiary education providers.

A New Mental Health Charter

Underlying this proposal are plans to introduce certificates of excellence for providers which meet new standards of mental health care. The rationale for this change is to reinforce the message that HE is about more than just academic study. This is a leadership issue that must be addressed by vice-chancellors and governing bodies at an institution-wide level. It is also something that prospective students and their parents will be able to take into account when deciding where to apply.

In order to help providers improve their approach, there will be a new student mental health charter which will be piloted over a three-year period. It will set out criteria to be met in order to demonstrate that adequate student (and staff) mental health support measures are in place. It is hoped that all HEIs will ultimately sign up to the project, which is supported by a £100,000 grant from the University Partnerships Programme and will be led by the charity Student Minds, with input from the Office for Students, National Union of Students and Universities UK.

In Loco Parentis?

Perhaps the most striking statement made during Gyimah's announcement is that universities should see themselves as being ‘in loco parentis’ accepting all of the responsibilities that implies.

In practice, this would mean universities doing what is reasonable in all the circumstances to safeguard and promote students’ welfare and signifies a legal as well as a moral duty. This is the position that schools, local authorities and guardians have long recognised in respect of children in their care, but is not something that readily translates into the delivery of higher education to adults.

It is an approach that many in the HE sector are likely to reject as inappropriate for students who are no longer children and whose higher education experience is to a large extent expected to be defined by them becoming more independent and autonomous than they were at school.

However, this idea does place welcome focus on the importance of the transition from childhood to the adult world and the need to bridge what can be a sudden and potentially dangerous jump from supported study at school to relatively unfettered freedom as an undergraduate.

Towards a New Support Model?

More likely to gain traction is the proposed implementation of an ‘opt in’ alert system where during their first week students may, if they want to, authorise the university to contact their parents in the event of a mental health emergency. The logic is that restrictions currently imposed by data protection rules would no longer act as a barrier to intervention from family. Some universities have already committed to implementing this approach.

Growing expectation from both prospective applicants and government that providers will be transparent about how much support they make available to students suggests that some form of league table is not far away. Nevertheless, views on the extent to which HEIs should be expected to resource specialist student services remain mixed. While all providers offer a level of support, some institutions maintain that as their core function is to be an educational institution, their remit is being distorted. Others are embracing the challenges of increased demand by reconfiguring their support model through restructuring (eg by using a combination of counsellors and mentors) and outsourcing (eg by entering into partnership arrangements with local NHS commissioned services).

Prevention Rather Than Cure

Another source of disagreement is the perception that some institutions are using the term ‘wellbeing services’ to rebrand what was previously known as mental health support and, in particular, counselling. Objections to this are based on the view that as ‘wellbeing’ is a much wider concept than ‘mental health’, it is actually a way of diluting resource when demand for substantive specialist support is greater than ever.

Looked at another way, this is really an argument about the merits of prevention or cure, with well-being services being symptomatic of a preventative approach and counselling of treatment. Whilst a combination of the two is always likely to be needed, the new report from the Mental Health Policy Commission ‘Investing in a resilient generation’ (July 2018) is clear that on economic grounds alone prevention rather than cure must be the policy priority.

The government’s latest mental health proposals complement the range of initiatives already in place through the work of organisations such as Universities UK and demonstrate the extent to which this issue has become a priority for the sector nationally. Whilst there may never be agreement about whether HEIs should act in loco parentis there is consensus on the value of anticipatory approaches that recognise when, as well as why, students are vulnerable.

For more information please contact Kris Robbetts in our Higher Education team on 0117 314 5427.

A version of this article originally appeared in University Business in September 2018.