December 2024 update

Mental Health Taskforce

Last week, the Department for Education published the second report of the Higher Education Mental Health Implementation Taskforce. The report outlines the progress made across each of the strands, the key elements of which are summarised below.

On the first strand – supporting adoption of good practice – I am pleased that 113 HEPs have joined the 2024/25 University Mental Health Charter programme. This represents a significant improvement over the previous years. I want to thank those HEPs who have joined the Charter, as well as Student Minds, for their continuing commitment to student mental health. In addition, Student Minds has recently published a package of resources which celebrates the Charter’s success and outlines its plans for continuous improvement; my thanks to OfS for funding this work.

The Committee of University Chairs (CUC) is working with the Taskforce to develop a Mental Health Governance Framework. This Framework will outline how HEPs should use mental health strategies most effectively alongside monitoring and reporting mechanisms to deliver the best possible outcomes for students, staff and institutions alike. We anticipate that this Framework will be published in spring 2025.

The second strand is considering ways that HEPs can identify and support students who may be vulnerable to declining mental health, but who may not self-disclose. It has multiple elements, including:

• A Competency Framework to support non-clinical staff to identify and respond to students’ mental health needs in ways that are role-appropriate (set to be published in January 2025);
• A mental health analytics roundtable, that will bring together HEPs, sector agencies and system providers (planned for March/April 2025);
• Work with UCAS to consider how it may further support and improve the transition experience of students with mental health challenges; and
• Guidance on implementing case management systems, in collaboration with AMOSSHE and UMHAN (set to be published in spring 2025).

I will share more details on these four areas in a future update.

The third strand has seen the publication of a compassionate communication document, which was launched at the Academic Registrar’s Council (ARC) conference in November 2024. The document sets out five principles that HEPs should adopt in their academic and conduct processes. These principles are consistent with 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 HEPs in England.

For more information on the compassionate communication document, as well as helpful case studies, please see the Higher Education Student Support Champion website.

The fourth strand – the National Suicide Review – continues to progress, with the National Confidential Inquiry into Suicide and Safety in Mental Health (NCISH) having received a significant number of serious incident reviews from HEPs. NCISH will now consider these reviews in their entirety and its full report will be published in spring 2025. Again, I would like to thank those HEPs that have engaged with this first-of-its-kind activity.

The relationship between HEPs and the NHS is the final strand. The Taskforce will publish guidance to support HEPs and the NHS to co-design and implement student-specific mental health services. Since my last update, insight collected from several notable HE-NHS partnerships have been analysed and the Taskforce has reviewed initial findings. Early in the new year, guidance will be shared with stakeholders across the HE and Health systems before its full launch later in the year.

In my role as Student Support Champion, and working in collaboration with AdvanceHE, I convened the first stakeholder group of the Student Support Redesign project in November 2024. This group will inform the development of resources to support HEPs to consider the range of support interventions they are delivering, and to identify opportunities to improve the design and delivery of support. This work is a development of the Student Needs Framework that I originally published alongside AdvanceHE in 2023.

As part of this project, I will be hosting two roundtables in 2025. The purpose of these roundtables is to better understand the current extent of evidence, to identify innovative practice, and to inform development of the Student Support Redesign work. These roundtables are:

• Models and approaches of personal tutoring, coaching and advising.
• Models and approaches of peer support and tutoring.

I will share more details on these roundtables in my January update. However, if you would like to register your interest, or follow up on any of the matters outlined above, then please email ben.mccarthy@ntu.ac.uk