Is Mental Health Your Uni’s Responsibility?

With high study costs and increasing pressure to perform well in exams and assignments, as well as many students moving away from home for the first time, there are an abundance of factors that may contribute to students’ poor mental health in university. These include, but are not limited to social pressure, financial pressure, academic pressure, tight deadlines and encountering new experiences, as well as living independently for the first time.

Kasper from Student Minds said: “Going to uni for anyone, no matter how old they are, is a large period of transition. Around half of young people in the UK today go to university. There’s a lot riding on it in terms of your future life, career, finances or lifestyle.”

It’s important to remember that this transition period is not just difficult for young undergraduate first year students, it can also affect older students or even postgraduate students.

Kasper explains: “If you’re moving from home to a university in a big city, that’s a big change. If you’re a mature student or a distance learner, then that’s a big change. I think that, in terms of the student experience, it’s kind of a big area to transition. I think that that is the reason why students are in such a unique position in society”.

Mental illnesses have tended to carry a stigma that physical illnesses don’t have, due to their invisible nature.  This social stigma can be largely due to the belief that the mental health illness is self-inflicted or that the individual will be hard to talk to. If not confronted, these social stigmas can lead to exclusion and discrimination, which will only worsen the mental health sufferer’s problem.

However, stigma is, arguably, not as prevalent as it once was, helped by the increase of media attention and the normalization of mental health issues. Kasper from Student Minds said: “stigma, generally, has reduced a lot, and more people are coming forward about mental health – a lot more people feel they can talk about it.”

He explained that attitudes in society have shifted a lot over the past decade in regards to talking openly about mental health, and indicates that educating people about it, is a good way to reduce social stigma. He said: “At student minds, we have this term ‘mental health literacy’, which is about people understanding more about mental health and learning the different models that people use and at ways of explaining mental health to people, and looking at giving people the confidence to talk about it.”

Do we need to do more to raise awareness of mental health problems? “In terms of awareness raising, I think that we need to move from awareness raising to action and change, which is why [Student Minds] run programs to try and get people taking action.” Kasper said.

 “We think universities can do better” said Kasper, “which is why we’re leading the work with several partners to create and launch the University Mental Health Charter.” The Charter is a UK wide scheme to acknowledge and reward institutions that demonstrate good practice regarding mental health. “We're going to be publishing the principles of the framework of that charter in December this year.”

Students Minds said they take a ‘whole university approach’ to mental health, “which means not just looking at the services they provide but also the whole educational experience, through the lens of mental health and wellbeing.”

Universities UK, the membership body for universities in the UK, also believe that a whole university approach is the way forward, and have therefore created a step change plan to help improve students’ mental health. This plan encourages universities to involve staff and students at all stages of the journey to helping mental health.

They believe that universities play an important role regarding students’ mental health. “The #stepchange in student mental health begins with higher education leaders adopting mental health as a strategic imperative," they said.

With universities working with these organizations and enforcing positive changes to improve students’ mental health, there will be a net benefit for universities and students alike, to make the university experience an all-round more supportive and inclusive one.

So is mental health your university’s responsibility? We think it should be – at least partly. A university that takes care of students’ mental health is likely to have better academic results and a generally happier student body. Of course, it is up to students to seek help for problems affecting their own mental health, but we believe that universities should help students by providing this help, and making students aware of it.

We also agree with UK Universities and Student Minds’ idea of a unified ‘whole university’ approach, because poor mental health is not discriminatory, and it does not just affect one particular group of people –it can affect staff just as much as students! Universities should work as a single unit to reduce the factors that contribute to poor mental health, and make the facilities available to students better and more comprehensive, thereby helping to improve the university experience for everyone involved.

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In the UK, Samaritans can be contacted on 116 123 or email [email protected]. In the US, the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline is 1-800-273-8255. In Australia, the crisis support service Lifeline is 13 11 14. Other international suicide helplines can be found at www.befrienders.org.