What's behind the increase?

Dr Monika Nangia, Director of Student and Academic Experience, SOAS

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The 'School of Oriental and African Studies' is one of eight universities to record a decrease in demand for student mental health services since 2015/16. A spokesperson for the university said "it wouldn't be fair" to say that meant a decrease in students accessing services and pointed to a rise in the number of students engaging with online services throughout he pandemic.  These services were offered on an anonymised basis and therefore it wasn't possible to differentiate between unique and repeat users.

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Dr Nangia said this greatly contributed to opening up the accessibility of online services.

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"In most cases (online services) have been designed and developed to be anonymised so that has really opened up the provision to a whole new group of students. Before they would have had to come on campus, make an appointment, wait in an area where they might have felt embarrassed to be seen in: now, having online support, means they are still getting regular one-to-one support but without having to put themselves out there.

 

The (pandemic) has been a real eye-opener and given staff the confidence to be able to prove (online) support that they would traditionally only deliver in person. To be able to improve on that is really powerful."

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SOAS is one of the smaller universities in the UK - with around 6,000 full-time students - and as a result have sought to improve community links when it comes to the provision of mental health services. Students accessing those services aren't covered by the scope of the data requested but Dr Nangia highlighted as yet another reason why students felt comfortable in coming forward for support. It's an approach that Dr Nangia encouraged other universities to adopt and not to shy away from admitting they, also, sometimes need support in supporting their students.

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"We have that support network that we've built to enable us to reach out to students and provide them with the right support so they don't have to wait a long period of time to get that support. My key message (to other universities) would be to not pretend and think you can do everything: you can't and your students needs are so varied (so) what we need is to make sure we are well connected to services within the community."

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The last contributing factor raised by Dr Nangia was that of the symbiotic relationship between the 'university experience' and heightened concerns around mental wellbeing.

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"You cannot separate parts of a students life and put them into different boxes. It all impacts everything: financial concerns leads to stress, academic work leads to stress and it's all connected."

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Kerry-Ann Randle, Head of Student Support and Wellbeing at Bournemouth University

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Bournemouth University recorded the third highest increase in students accessing mental health services since 2015/16 with demand rising by 330.2%. Jim Andrews, Chief Operating Officer of Bournemouth University, told Buzz News in March 2021 it was 'really positive' that mental health is 'a much less taboo subject than when (I) was at university'.

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Kerry-Ann Randle, Head of Student Support and Wellbeing at Bournemouth University, said the university had sought to simplify the pathway to support in order to increase accessibility:

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"The approach we've taken over the past couple of years is helping students in how to access services. We have adopted four pillars of wellbeing... and the idea of that is that students get to the right area of support in the most efficient way possible. All of our webpages and all of our services come under those four areas of wellbeing. I think that's helped students know where to look, it has helped academics in how to signpost and all that has probably led to an increase in numbers."

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The university also suggested the increase in numbers was reflective of early intervention and proactive engagement with students.

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"We've worked really hard at raising awareness of the support available for students, not just with students but with academics, catering staff, cleaning staff, so the fact it's increased I'm secretly pleased about. Not secretly, I'm very pleased about and that's because it would indicate to me that we are getting to students earlier and we're getting the support that students need, when they need it, (so that is) only a good thing in my eyes."

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Whilst the number of students engaging with university mental health services has increased every academic year since 2015/16, there has been a noticeable jump since the beginning of the pandemic. Kerry-Ann Randle suggested the speed with which universities were able to transition online increased confidence in services and helped re-route students away from a stretched NHS.

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"We work really closely with Dorset Mind and with local NHS services. The community mental heath teams were picking up quite a few students from those access points as well. At the time when waiting times to see a GP were a lot longer students, maybe, went to the services they could access seamlessly like the tools we have online and that's got to be a good thing."

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