Scotland publishes an action plan on student mental health

It planned a “significant investment” in the range of support available, which was to see “issues tackled earlier and where possible in the community”, while ensuring “speedier access to specialist care for those who need it.”

At the time then Health Secretary Jeane Freeman said that supporting the health and wellbeing of students was “essential” if they were to achieve their full potential:

Our significant investment – in more than 80 additional mental health counsellors over the next four years – will strengthen the support available in every college and university in Scotland.

The central commitment in the PfG was 80 additional counsellors across further and higher education between 2019/20 and 2022/23 – but then the money dried up.

In 2023/24, the government announced an additional, one off, one-year Student Mental Health and Wellbeing Transition Fund to support institutions to “transition” from the previous funding which focussed on supporting additional counsellor provisions, to a “sustainable approach” to support student mental health.

For “sustainable” read “we’re not funding those counsellors any more”.

And now that everyone has undertaken that transition, we have instead a Student Mental Health Action Plan – consulted upon through a Student Mental Health and Wellbeing Working Group, which seems to have been sat on a draft since 2022.

And while there is no discrete, separate (actual) funding for institutions associated with the plan, it “recognises the critical importance of early intervention and prevention”, seeks to ensure “effective access to a diverse range of community-based clinical and non-clinical services”, and is interested in the provision of “timely clinical acute care for those who require it”.

It also “recognises the significant investment already made in local services by the Scottish Government”, sets out its “expectations for institutions on supporting student mental health and wellbeing”, and describes how the Scottish Government “will work with them and the wider public sector”.

The central problem here, as with many of these state sponsored “no money, but we are convening” style-plans is that at least when you announce a plan for 80 extra counsellors you can count how many extra counsellors you recruited.

It would be infinitely better to measure some outcomes – but given lots of these sorts of student mental health initiatives seem to suffer from an inability to establish a baseline (what’s the current mental health of Scottish students? Where will it be? etc) it will be nigh-on impossible to establish whether the action plan worked. Or whether it’s enough.

There’s a mild irony to the country in the UK that holds its FE and HE providers to outcome “agreements” not being able even to vaguely suggest what the outcomes or impacts will be from its flagship student mental health strategy.

There’s five big actions in the plan. The first is will bring together colleges and universities, Public Health Scotland, Third Sector partners, Suicide Prevention Scotland, CoSLA, and The Quality Assurance Agency for Higher Education Scotland to “facilitate and enhance” connections to services and support available locally, and to national organisations that offer prevention and early intervention services.

A working group.

It will also “encourage” institutions to put in place suicide prevention plans (but not require?) and to integrate mental health and wellbeing, including awareness of suicide and self-harm, into their teaching programmes.

That’s a good example of the “PSHE problem” I’ve been banging on about for ages – it just isn’t going to happen beyond voluntary tick box modules piling up at Week -1.

Action 2 is to give Think Positive a slither of continued funding to assist with the drafting, maintenance and refinement of Student Mental Health Agreements – effectively local policies/action plans.

To make this happen, the Scottish Government will bring together institutions, Public Health Scotland, See Me, Think Positive, PBSA providers, local authorities, and third sector organisations to “share best practice” from across the sector on how students can access information and wellbeing services.

A working group. Let’s hope it goes better than when DfE tried that in England.

The third action is on staff – here the Scottish Government will lead a joint effort with Public Health Scotland, NHS Education Scotland, Suicide Prevention Scotland, NHS 24, See Me, trade unions, institutions, and accommodation providers to “raise awareness” of the availability of resources and their relevance for different mental health issues, and to encourage their uptake and use.

A working group. I’m not especially convinced that the key barrier to take up of the resources listed is a lack of awareness – it’s more likely to be a lack of time and capacity in a system that keeps having its budgets cut.

Action 4 is focussed on data sharing between schools/colleges and universities, and Action 5 will see the Scottish Government “collaborate” with institutions, NHS Boards, Health and Social Care Partnerships (HSCPs), and other partners to improve student access to primary and secondary care services, “explore” enhancing data collection on student use of mental health services, “strengthen” partnerships and communication between institutions and NHS Boards/HSCPs, and “promote” crisis services like NHS 24 Mental Health Services to ensure students are aware of immediate support options.

A working group.

Sigh. Not only is the proposed impact of all of this as woolly as you’d expect, there’s no real description of what it is that we expect universities to do and what we expect the NHS or other services to do.

It certainly doesn’t feel like the plan represents anything approaching “grip” on the issue. The one mention of international students, for example, runs as follows:

A recent report by Student Minds highlighted that international students are concerned about a range of issues including their own mental and physical health as well as academic performance and making friends. There is also evidence that there is a disproportionate number of international students being admitted to hospital for psychiatric treatment.

That report found that 7 in 10 international students reported feeling “concerned” or “very concerned” about financial issues – but in the action plan, there’s no further mention of international students, so perhaps international student mental health is mentioned in the International Education Strategy? Nope.

In its Roadmap to a new Education System back in June, NUS Scotland called for long-term, ring-fenced funding for universities’ mental health support, a “transitions” review panel, responsible for creating a set of standards for key moments of transition for students in relation to mental health, and long-term funding for the Think Positive project.

It was right then, and it’s right now.