Would you rather know a student is struggling with their mental health?

[Anx10usZ3bra]

Hi All,

I'm sorry to barge in here. I hope you don't mind me asking. I'm a mature student and struggling with my mental health. I'm wondering if it's worth reaching out to my personal tutor. As an academic, would you rather know if one of your students is struggling with their mental health? Would you find it random them telling you / would you rather not know?

Thanks!

I’m a secondary school teacher and children tell us this all the time. I imagine at university it’s even more common (could be wrong!) so I definitely don’t think your tutor would think it’s random. They might be able to direct you somewhere so I’m sure they’d want to know so they can help.

I'd rather know - part of the role is signposting to services that can help. Another part is making sure that any extensions/extenuating circs for assessments happen if they are needed. If we know early we can try to put all the mitigations in place so our students can cope and do as well as possible.

Woops I meant to say your tutor wouldn’t think it was random

Yes!

I'd rather know too - like SaberToothKitten, part of my role is signposting to services that can help and also making sure that appropriate extenuating/mitigating circumstances provision is applied for. It's very definitely part of the "personal tutor" role description, and probably the most common reason for students applying for mit. circs. (at least at my uni) so please don't feel hesitant to reach out to your tutor.

Thank you so much all, I think I'll drop them an email. I have no imminent deadlines so no extension / mitigating circs needed right now but may be useful to just keep them in the loop - I guess?

one of my DD struggles with her MH and her personal tutor and head of department both really helped her.

Yes for sure, it's part of my role to let students know what help is available, and I also think it just helps not to keep it a secret and let people know, kind of takes away some of the power in some sense. At our institution, there's quite a lot of services, ranging from just getting extensions or deferring work, right to pathways where the student works with dedicated staff to try to get them through the entire course (e.g. if they start missing a lot, missing more than one deadline), there's also counselling although there is a bit of a wait.

I would definitely rather know. I'd also say that a lot of students, as well as a lot of staff (according to our recent survey) are having mental health difficulties right now, and I have noticed even usually upbeat students are saying 'erm' when asked how they are- there has been a drop in motivation, more sleeping problems and so forth lately, in addition to the more severe end of mental health issues. You are definitely not alone.

Yes, absolutely. We are prepared to stretch things as far as we can for students with issues, but we need to know about them to do that.

I'm a fellow mature student, and also an academic rep., I'd say your tutors absolutely will want to know! I sit in on departmental and faculty meetings and this subject comes up a lot. They really do want to know so they can help you. They want you to do well, and they can only do that if they know about any problems that may be holding you back.

Do speak up! Let your personal tutor know as a first step, and then speak to the tutors of any modules you are taking.

I'd say yes, tell me so I can direct you to help, but it does get me down when students treat me as a de facto counsellor/therapist. I have been exposed to some horrific details over the years and then just expected to leave my office and deliver a lecture as if my brain isn't filled with awful images.