Conference Introduction - Eileen Smith - Chair of HUCS

Welcome to this conference, which has been organised by HUCS (Heads of University Counselling Services).  It is a great pleasure to welcome delegates from all over the UK and the Republic of Ireland and to have such a range of professions and organisations represented today.  We include students, GPs and psychiatrists, nurses, academics, university mangers, directors of Student Services and specialists in different kinds of student service provision, representatives of a number of voluntary groups and public bodies, academics, disability officers, researchers, as well as counsellors.  We are very pleased to see all of you and sorry we have had to turn some people away because the conference is full.  We have been struck by the extent of interest the conference has attracted.

We are meeting at a time of some uncertainty and considerable activity in HE - possibly even at a defining moment in its history- as we await the outcome of the spending review, clarification of how students are to be financed, even decisions on the kind of universities we are to have in the future.  We have the challenge of widening participation - the aim of having 50% of the 18-30 age group with an experience of higher education by 2010.  Government policy is not just to increase numbers but also to widen diversity; we are therefore very glad that Minister is coming and demonstrating her interest in how these policies will impact on individuals and institutions.

I imagine most of us are very much in favour of making university education more widely available but - as the recent UniversitiesUK report on Student Services pointed out - we will need to increase and develop our support services if these new students are to have not just an experience of HE but a good and successful one - if we are to remove the question mark after Beautiful Minds? in our title.  Dr Copland will address some of the issues facing HE further.

Alongside the debates on the general future of our universities there has been considerable work on the best forms of support for our students; much of this is now coming to fruition. Universities UK, where I am pleased we are able to meet, is responsible for the publication of a number of recent reports - last month's on student services, one released just last week on the attitudes of potential and actual students to debt and another due at the end of this week on reducing the risk of suicide in our universities.  The Royal College of Psychiatrists' report on the mental health of students is due to be published in the first half of next year.

We are not talking about a minority issue today.  I believe that in addressing mental health we are addressing an issue of relevance to us all.  Of course people with longstanding mental illness are entitled to particular provision under disability legislation and universities are required to make adjustments to support them in their studies.  However I would contend that we are all 'mental'; in that we all have minds and emotions, which affect our sense of ourselves, our ability to make relationships, to work and to contribute to society.

Bright Futures (a Mental Health Foundation report on the mental health of children and young people in 1999 to which I think Peter Wilson contributed a good deal) speaks of a continuum of need in relation to mental health.  To illustrate this I'd like to use a slide about the prevalence of different types of difficulty, which I have borrowed, from a presentation by Peter Wilson.

The smallest of the ellipses represents the 1-2% of the population with acute psychiatric illness; the next smallest represents 8- 10% or so with conduct/personality disorder, severe eating disorders etc; the third is for 20-30% with mental health problems like depression or anxiety; the final outside ellipse is everyone else - with risk factors due to being human, although not currently in difficulty.  The boundaries are permeable - we can't safely get into the outside ellipse and stay there for a lifetime

I would like to argue, paraphrasing Bright Futures that 'it is only by promoting the mental health of all students that we can create a healthy university that is able to support its vulnerable members'.

Of course students and staff arrive in universities with varying degrees of predisposition to health and illness, but universities can make a difference. Mental health depends on an interplay of internal and external factors. As the CVCP guidelines put it 'mental health can be affected by a number of elements including social, personal and economic factors' so a university (and behind it a government policy) which provides well in terms of accommodation, tutorial support, good teaching, well resourced central services can help its more vulnerable students (and staff) stabilise and develop; while institutions or individuals too preoccupied with their own survival will not be able to think and learn.  And here of course we are back to current debates about funding and the additional strain financial worries can place on people struggling to manage academic demands and personal transitions.

In considering students, mental health and the university we are addressing a complex area and one on which we need multiple perspectives: hence we are pleased to be able to offer a range of seminars this afternoon.  We will be considering the relationship between psychiatry and university counselling, current developments in student services and research.  We will be looking too at how we might make counselling services more accessible and acceptable and at academic support, a topic of particular importance because we know academics are the first professional source of support for the majority of distressed students.  We are fortunate in having chairs of a number of working parties in this field, authors, researchers, practitioners and a former user of counselling and psychiatric services among out speakers.

With such broad representation in both speakers and delegates we have access to a variety of personal and professional perspectives on the issues.

The purpose of the conference is for us to share experience and expertise and to consider ways in which we might learn from one another and collaborate better.  To help take this further we have included summaries of key documents from the NHS and HE sector and references to other resources in your conference packs.

The possibilities for co-operation are exciting but, inevitably, with so many groups and organisations represented there is also the possibility of energy being dissipated in unhealthy competitiveness and rivalries.  I would ask that we try to set these aside, to give up assumptions and certainties about ourselves and others; that we try not to be defensive or just to advocate what we know to be good.  Instead I would ask that we set out to learn from and think with others, to see if together we can come up with something new.  I would suggest the state of mind necessary for our project to succeed is one of healthy uncertainty, of being able to tolerate not having all the answers

For we are all aware that we have no cause for complacency.  There are students (and staff) who fall through all our systems, who need help and are not accessing or benefiting from any of our services.  So we need a concerted effort to build on and develop good practice; to think together about how we can take things forward. 

What we are dealing with today has an impact on everyone in universities and affects the very nature of their experience of higher education.  With 50% of all young adults expected to participate in HE by the end of the decade and with the increasing numbers of mature and part time students, the investment of time and care in providing sound student support could have a quiet but profound effect on our universities - and on the future of the society their graduates will help shape.

9/12/02

ã Eileen Smith/HUCS 2002