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Higher Education Student Support Champion

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In June 2022, the Department for Education (DfE) announced the appointment of Nottingham Trent University Vice Chancellor, Edward Peck, as the first Higher Education Student Support Champion (HESSC). On University Mental Health Day 2024, the DfE asked Edward to extend his role until June 2025. From July 2025, Edward will take up a new role as Chair of the Office for Students.

The role of the HE Student Support Champion was created to help universities to support students to thrive in their studies and to ensure they can access appropriate help as and when they need it.

Edward has engaged with providers of higher education – both universities and colleges – sector agencies, students, and parents to discuss challenges and opportunities, and to share best practice on approaches to keeping students engaged with their studies.

If you wish to contact Professor Peck directly, please email hessc@ntu.ac.uk.

There is a determination within higher education institutions to get this right and I will promote effective and evidence-based best practice across the sector, enabling higher education providers to offer the widest possible range of ways to support students.

NTU Vice Chancellor, Professor Edward Peck

Priorities

During summer 2022, the Student Support Champion undertook an extensive consultation with the sector to define the priorities for his work. These themes are derived from these conversations, as well as ongoing discussions with Ministers and Department for Education officials. This dialogue will continue as the programme develops and progress is made on this important agenda.

Discover more about ongoing priorities and guidance that has been published to help universities support students:

Higher Education Mental Health Implementation Taskforce

Edward chairs the HE Mental Health Implementation Taskforce (HEMHIT) which was established in June 2023 by the Minister of State for Skills, Apprenticeships and Higher Education in response to the Parliamentary debate calling for the creation of a statutory duty of care. The HEMHIT’s role is to oversee the development and delivery of the measures announced by the Minister, including:

  • Support the adoption of common principles and baselines for approaches across providers, including through charter memberships and the development of a mental health governance framework.
  • Promote approaches for better identification of students in need of mental health support (summary note of the roundtable held on this topic).
  • Develop a ‘Compassionate Commitment’ for more sensitive student-facing policies, procedures, and communications in the sector (summary note of the roundtable held on this topic). This Commitment was published in 2024.
  • Support sector engagement with the national review of students suicides in higher education.
  • Develop guidance on collaboration between higher education providers and the NHS.

Further information on these strands can be found below.

Resources:

Compassionate Communication in Higher Education

Compassionate Communication is an output of the Higher Education Mental Health Implementation Taskforce. It sets out standards of practice for higher education providers in England which it is expected will be considered when updating policies and procedures and refreshing Student Charters.

Compassionate Communication is owned by the Academic Registrars’ Council (ARC) and this material is hosted by the HE Student Support Champion on their behalf.

The principles of Compassionate Communication are consistent with the principles of the Good Practice Framework published by the Office of the Independent Adjudicator for Higher Education (OIA) and may be taken into consideration by the OIA when reviewing student complaints about higher education providers in England. See Kindness at the OIA - OIAHE.

View the full Compassionate Communication statement.

Case studies:

A Competency Framework for Responding to Students in Distress

The Competency Framework is an output of the Higher Education Mental Health Implementation Taskforce. It sets out key approaches, skills and knowledge that enable all student-facing staff to respond more effectively and consistently to student wellbeing and mental health needs.

It acts as a guide to higher education providers and professional bodies as they refine their learning and development programmes for student-facing staff, ensuring students receive a safe and helpful response from whoever they interact with.

View the Competency Framework.

National Review of Higher Education Student Suicides

In 2023, the Department for Education commissioned experts in suicide and self-harm prevention from the National Confidential Inquiry into Suicide and Safety in Mental Health (NCISH), to conduct an independent review of student suicide deaths (and incidents of non-fatal self-harm). The Higher Education Mental Health Implementation Taskforce has supported the sector’s engagement with this review.

The review collated key findings identified within serious incident reports completed by universities, assessed the quality of these reports, and identified examples of good practice as well as areas needing improvement.

NCISH published its research report in May 2025. It made recommendations around safety concerns, suicide prevention within university systems, amendments to sector guidance and safety measures for the wider system.

View the report on higher education student suicide deaths.

Student Support Re-design and the Student Needs Framework

Edward recognises that the student support landscape is complex, and evidence on what works is still being established. We have collaborated with Universities UK’s Student Policy Network and AdvanceHE to develop the Student Needs Framework, which defines the fundamental needs of students and provides a framework for HEPs to use when considering how they re-design their student support to deliver a comprehensive, coherent and evidence-based system.

Phase two of this work began in May 2024, and included further collaboration with AdvanceHE and a newly established Reference Group to develop additional resources for HEPs to employ when undergoing transformative student support redesign.

In addition, Edward convened two roundtables - on pastoral support and peer support - in March 2025. These explored key areas where the sector lacks clear and shared insights into designing and delivering evidence-based approaches to support. The summary notes from these roundtables can be viewed below.

View the Student Needs Framework

Resources:

Transition to HE

Over the summer of 2023 Edward chaired a series of roundtables, in partnership with Unite Students, to discuss the changing needs of school and college learners and how having more information about students might improve HE transition activities. Summary notes from these three roundtables can be found below.

In May 2024, Edward published a report with Unite Students derived from the roundtables held over summer 2023, as well as research conducted by Unite Students. The report provides an overview of the experiences of young people transitioning into higher education, and offers recommendations for policymakers, higher education providers, schools and colleges, and wider public services.

View the report into improving the transition to higher education.

Resources:

Student Analytics

Student analytics are going to become ever more sophisticated, predicting as well as reporting on student engagement and wellbeing.

So far, the work has focused on highlighting the key data that are needed to develop descriptive and predictive analytics for engagement and wellbeing monitoring. In March 2023 we published with Jisc a Core Data Specification for Student Analytics, which can be found below.

The topic of wellbeing analytics now forms one of the strands of the HE Mental Health Implementation Taskforce. In May 2025, a roundtable was held to explore current research and practice around the use of wellbeing analytics, and to understand the obstacles and barriers that universities face in implementing them. The summary notes from this roundtable can be found below.

View the core specification for student analytics.

Resources:

Information Sharing

This work has tackled how colleagues working in the sector should share information when there are significant concerns about a student.

In 2023, we published guidance on effective data sharing between Private Purpose-Built Student Accommodation (PBSA) providers and HEPs. Additional guidance, on sharing information between Students’ Unions (SUs) and HEPs, was published in April 2025.

Resources:

HE Student Support Champion termly sector updates

2025

2024

2023

Contact us

Please get in touch with any comments or feedback at hessc@ntu.ac.uk.