The seminar attracted a group of about fifteen participants in addition to the speakers and chair.
The first speaker, Nicky Stanley from the University of Hull, outlined findings that had arisen from her research at her university into the experiences of academic staff supervising students with mental health problems.
A significantly higher proportion of academics in the faculties of arts and humanities, social science and of training for caring professions had experience of students with mental health problems than did those in the faculty of science and accounting, law and management (around 40% compared to around 28%).
The University counselling service was the agency most commonly contacted by supervisors, ahead of students' friends, family, doctor and warden and far ahead of psychiatric and mental health workers, although interestingly students' friends were identified by some as the source of the most helpful background information. When asked to define significant helpful factors, the accessibility of a counselling service ranked equal highest with personal expertise, and there was testimony to how much a fast response and specific suggestions from the counselling service were appreciated.
The most significant difficulties identified by the academics included lack of insight into the problem by the student, lack of personal knowledge or skill on the academic's part, and confidentiality problems when relating to other services. A quote relating to the third problem that prompted much subsequent discussion was "I find the Counselling Service's present policy on confidentiality too rigid. One encounters a wall of silence when all one is wanting is reassurance and some indication of the level of concern and possible length of the problem". There was also criticism of the limited concern shown by medical services over students felt by academics to be in acute distress "…these students needed 24 hour support … I ended up taking one home with me."
The research revealed that the academics were unclear upon was precisely what they were and were not responsible for, and that their training and support needs included guidance on their own role, greater knowledge of roles and contact points in the relevant support services and greater availability of opportunities for consultation.
Unfortunately it has not been possible to reproduce Nicky's work on the Beautiful Minds? web site or elsewhere for general distribution because of her pre-existing copyright obligations, but those interested in reading further are referred to Nicky's published works, in particular Responding to Student Mental Health Needs (Stanley, Manthorpe and Bradley - University of Hull 2000) and Students' Mental Health Needs (ed. Stanley and Manthorpe - Jessica Kingsley 2002).
The second speaker, Ros Crouch from the University of Hertfordshire, first made some general introductory observations, concerning how the student to staff ratio had dramatically increased over the previous decade, while the resources available had equally dramatically decreased, resulting in the fact that departments were attempting to support students with only 25% of the resources per student that they would have had a decade previously. She summarised the key pressure points in the student experience - transitions and examinations. She noted that, despite the existence and importance of more specialised support services, the personal tutor remained a key central helping figure, identified as such in recent research because the student is most likely to seek help from the person with whom they have most contact.
She noted the increasing complexity of the tutorial task, as course regulations and variations became more complex and academic staff more hard-pressed. She also noted however that new forms of electronic communication might offer something of a way forward. She then developed a theme that had also been highlighted in the UK Universities report on support for widening access, which was the importance of early intervention. Her research suggested a significant correlation between take up of early meetings with personal tutors and academic improvement, despite the fact that those who declined meetings were offered follow-up in other ways.
Ros then presented several case-studies of different types of students identified by tutors. These were most absorbing and led the group to ask for further examples despite time constraints.
We were introduced to the cases of students who failed in early tests but felt they had no problems and so addressed themselves to the need for improvement. In other words these students had a capacity to self-adjust and the academic's role was to recognise this and to remain in the background.
Another group of students tended to acknowledge problems but maybe minimised their difficulties. With more insistent tutorial intervention, they too recognised the need for remedial action and showed a large measure of improvement.
Others felt they had problems, but in fact performed well at all stage, whilst yet others had significant personal difficulties and were unable to recover, needing help instead to intermit or renegotiate their learning plans.
What emerged was a complex picture. However, the constant feature seemed to be the academic staff member's ability to distinguish between failure caused by slower self-adjustment, failure needing remedial action, unnecessary worry and circumstances making referral necessary or study impossible. Within this complexity, early intervention and in-depth consideration of each student's individual profile emerged as important elements.
I have summarised the complex arguments in this longer presentation fairly ruthlessly since Ros's paper, together with a full set of references, appears on the conference website so those wishing to appreciate her input in more depth are able to do so.
The group then had a mass of issues they wished to discuss in the brief time remaining, so these were listed and voted upon. We took the issues in order of popularity.
Confidentiality and Ethical Dilemmas. Some academics had experience of finding counselling services unhelpfully predisposed against disclosure. Some of us felt we were torn between the confidentiality required by our clients (and our Code of Ethics) and our desire to help academic staff support individual students more effectively by disclosing more. Other counsellors suspected academics' desire to know more and felt they may have mixed motives for not simply asking the student. We touched on data recording issues - whether academics should record their concerns about students on file and the difference between structured files that students could ask to see routinely and unstructured files that could only come to light if legal action was taken. We did not get much further than recognising the difficulties and the desire to get beyond them in our work together.
Role Conflict. Academics had to support students, but also ultimately to assess them too, and this produced dilemmas and contradictions. We touched on the idea of natural justice in dealings and how interventions should progress through educating, involving and then counselling and referring, before they moved into the more conflictual areas of negotiation and eventual coercive discipline, as they sometimes must.
Awareness of Mental Health Issues. Academics were busy and collectively hearts dropped at the thought of yet more input. However, unless mental health training was compulsory it ended up only being attended by those who were sympathetic and already had some knowledge. The feeling was for training across the board.
Responding to Special Needs. Finally we touched on the linked issue of the concept of reasonable adjustment - how could courses be changed to create a level playing field for those with special needs without introducing unfairness and sacrificing the intellectual rigour which made the learning worthwhile?
Feedback shows all aspects of the workshop was valued - it was highly marked overall - but that maybe there was just too much in too small a space - too much fascinating research, too many issues and too many people packed into too short a time and too small a room. As chair I hope that I can at least do some information gathering (in the AUCC and in relevant publications) to illuminate some of the points raised, and I hope to contact the participants via email and the web to pass back some of the answers I find and pass some of the unanswered questions on for further consideration.
I regret we did not think to circulate a list to gather email addresses of participants, but I will compose a list of as many as I can to alert you to such information as I can gather; maybe if you are reading this and were at the workshop but have not heard from me you could let me have you email address.
Christopher Butler
(christopher.butler@rhul.ac.uk)
ă HUCS 2003