Professor Rick Trainor, Vice Chancellor of the University of Greenwich, spoke about the recently released UUK/SCOP report, Student Services Effective approaches to retaining students in higher education. Professor Trainor, who was chair of the Student Services project, explained the background to the report saying that Student Services would have a more central part to play in universities in the future in the light of widening participation and increased student diversity. He said the report was put together within a very short timescale to coincide with the original date of the government White Paper. Many of the findings depended on additional resources being available to HEIs. Professor Trainor went through the report and highlighted the following:
He emphasised that student support was central to retention and that there was considerable good practice across the sector. He explained that the findings of the report were not claiming to be scientific and the examples of good practice were simply a snapshot. Additional funding was essential, otherwise widening participation would be self defeating. He also called for more research into student support and said that this area of work should have the same priority as teaching, learning and research.
He told the meeting that report made recommendations to HEFCE. These included ensuring that sufficient funding is provided to attract and retain students from non-traditional backgrounds; that it should consider whether its funding methods and performance indicators could reflect student success more accurately and that it should develop costing techniques for HEIs to use in assessing the level and type of resources needed to support students. Funding should reflect the real costs, said Professor Trainor.
It also made a total of thirteen recommendations to HEIs, several of which were referred to by Professor Trainor. The first encompasses the idea that Student Services should be “effectively integrated with and contribute effectively to their strategic planning, particularly in the areas of widening participation; marketing, recruitment and admissions; learning teaching and assessment; induction; retention and progression; employability; human resource development and estates”. Others suggest the introduction of One Stop Shops; targeting specific groups of students; evaluating the effectiveness of support given; focusing on first year students and student induction; ensuring co-ordination between student support and services and academic support; better links with student unions.
Professor Trainor suggested that further work was needed in the area of the type
of support most appropriate to meet the needs of a changing population of
students. He concluded that Student Services needed to be a higher priority in
the planning and funding of HEIs and emphasised the importance of an integrated
approach.
Sally Olohan, Head of Student Services at Nottingham Trent University spoke about the way in which Student Services should respond to students with mental health problems. As chair of the AMOSSHE working group which produced the Good Practice Guide for dealing with students with mental health problems, she advocated a joined up, multidisciplinary approach. She suggested that appropriate interventions should be made at all stages in the student life cycle and that structural barriers to this needed to be addressed if these students were to succeed in universities.
Sally said that Student Services were struggling to understand the implications of the concept of Duty of Care and to what extent they should be involved in “managing” crises with students with mental health problems. The aim, she said, was to produce a guidance document for managers. She emphasised the good work that was already going on in universities and re-iterated the idea that universities needed to have procedures for supporting students with emerging mental health difficulties. Greater awareness of these problems was also needed.
Targeted intervention and co-ordinated referral practice are important to ensure that a holistic view of students’ needs is obtained. She listed those people who she considered responsible in providing intervention and support. They included, welfare support services, counselling and advisory services, disability, careers and educational guidance services, student health services, equal opportunity units, international student support programmes and accommodation services, including wardens. She suggested academic, administrative staff, security staff, library staff, porters and ancillary staff should also have discrete roles and responsibilities in the welfare of these students. Reduced contact with staff, course deadlines, pressure to succeed and other academic pressures could all have a potentially disabling effects on students with mental health problems.
At a strategic level, Sally said that “ effort should be complemented by initiatives to promote more inclusive learning, teaching and assessment approaches that seek to enable students to demonstrate their full academic potential, developing what the UUK Student Services report describes as a ‘culture of achievement’ rather than ‘setting students up to fail’.”
In conclusion, Sally Olohan suggested that universities should consider how a pro-active, rather than re-active student support approach could be applied at all stages of the student life cycle, from pre-admissions, through leave of absence and re-entry to exit. Services needed to be adequately resourced, and curriculum delivery and assessment design needed to be as accessible as possible and disclosure should be encouraged. “ If more students with mental health difficulties are identified, this should, in fact, be regarded as a positive indicator of progress in promoting inclusion for an under-represented group that is often overlooked within widening participation strategies.”
Barbara Waters, director of SKILL, spoke about Part Four of the Disability Discrimination Act and how it will affect universities in their dealings with students with mental health problems. She suggested that this section of the Act would raise the importance and profile of Student Services in institutions, particularly in the light of widening participation. In future there would be a greater onus on universities to look after the needs of disabled students, including those with mental health problems. This will need to be reflected in budgeting and planning. Institutions will have to make reasonable adjustments to the needs of disabled students. What this will mean in terms of mental health problems is not yet clear. However, she did emphasise the need for greater integration in terms of student support.
Barbara pointed out that issues such as confidentiality and disclosure were involved in reasonable adjustment and this was an issue for Student Services and also for tutors. Students can ask for their disability to remain confidential but Barbara suggested that the benefit of disclosure in terms of support needed to be pointed out to students. This would mean creating an atmosphere in universities in which students felt safe to disclose mental health problems. She described this as a culture of disclosure. She said it would also be important to discuss with students the implications of not disclosing a mental illness on a “need to know” basis. Counsellors and others would need to take reasonable steps to encourage students to disclose.
She touched briefly on issues that specifically affected counsellors, suggesting again the need to get students and institutions to consider the benefits of openness and to think about how to work with staff to create an atmosphere of trust. She asked counsellors to think about what needed to be passed on and what is not relevant, what is too much information and what is essential information. She also raised the question of whether confidentiality could be breached.
Questions and Discussion
Because this was a very large workshop with three speakers, it was not possible to have a general discussion. However, many interesting questions were asked of all the speakers. One conclusion reached by the group was that it is hard to quantify or evaluate the successful outcomes from good Student Services support. It is hard to say to what extend Student Services keep things from going wrong, for example in terms of student drop-out or suicide. But everyone was clear that Student Services needed a higher priority in the future planning and funding of all HEIs in the light of the Student Services report and SENDA.