To ask you too attend a candlelight vigil tomorrow evening in Edinburgh, Bristol or London

[Sophforthe100]

.. for the 100 students every year who take their own lives every year.

The law needs to change so that Universities have a duty of care to their students.

Fine out more: www.forthe100.org.uk/vigil

I'm a very regular Mumsnetter who has name-changed to post this.

If a student has given consent for the parents to be informed about their mental health problems and they know the student is suicidal, inform the parents.

I see the logic behind this, but students are adults - it's their responsibility to speak to their parents if they feel like they're struggling. It's not the job of a tutor/lecturer to spend time looking for their parents information and speak to them. I think it's a bit different if a student is under eighteen or has special needs/other disabilities/vulnerabilities that the university was aware of when they applied, though.

If the University is aware a student is having a severe mental health crisis then do not continue with the process of dismissing them from the University - by email - without consideration.

I can agree with this, but I suspect the e-mail being sent is an automated process that's triggered by a certain number of absences or a certain number of failing grades/courses. That's not to say it's okay, but I suspect it's not being done out of malice.

If a student has visited support services with a mental health issue that has not been resolved, do not tell them they cannot have a follow up appointment with Uni support services until the next academic year

Universities support thousands and thousands of students each year - they don't necessarily have the facilities or staff available to offer regular appointments to all of them. If students need further support, they can be signposted to their local GP or some kind of therapy. The fact that those services are also underfunded and hard to come by is not the fault of the university and they shouldn't be expected to pick up the pieces.

By the way, I say all of this as someone who struggled badly with their MH at university and who accessed support both on and off campus. It wasn't my tutors job to speak to my parents for me, just as it wasn't my GP's job to talk to them for me.

My university was unable to offer me regular support so I went to see my GP and got help that way. That was my responsibility as an adult. I also spoke to my parents and told them I was struggling. Yes, it was hard and I'm not saying otherwise, but we can't place the full responsibility for a students' MH problems on a university. They can (and do) offer appropriate support but it's not their job to act as go-betweens.

I’m also very interested as to why this wouldn’t apply to under 21 non-students, or whether it would apply to mature students of say 35. We can’t have separate processes for non-students, their lives are just as valuable and if parents being informed is so beneficial shouldn’t their GPs have the power to do the same? In which case this all becomes a debate about medical confidentiality and Gillick competence rather than anything specific to universities?

They are adults. If they want their parents to be informed about their mental health problems then they should inform their parents themselves. They are at university not in childcare.

You seem to expect university to fill the void left by failures in NHS mental health services. It is not their responsibility. They are neither a student's parent nor their psychotherapist.

I was not really wanting to spell this out as I don't want to come across as crass and insensitive, but here are the issues with these point:

• If a student has given consent for the parents to be informed about their mental health problems and they know the student is suicidal, inform the parents.
The problem here is a potential man-slaughter charge. A student tells their tutor they feel suicidal. The tutor is unable to reach a parent (it would be totally inappropriate to leave a message on an answer phone) tutor then has other work to do and then is whizzing out of the door forgetting they haven't made contact with a parent. Student takes their own life and now we have a tutor who is potentially indirectly responsible, and could legally face a man-slaughter charge.
You would also need a signed document from the student saying it's okay to inform parents, otherwise the tutor could face disciplinary charges for breaking confidentiality, then the signed doc might be null and void because the student could argue they weren't compos mentis at the time, so now a tutor has to know the laws around capacity and would need to fill out a capacity assessment.
Then there is note keeping, where does the tutor record they've tried to contact the parent. Etc etc. as I previously mentioned it's not straightforward.

• if the University is aware a student is having a severe mental health crisis then do not continue with the process of dismissing them from the University - by email - without consideration. I can't answer for all universities, but having been a uni student a few times, being 'sent-down' only happens in extremis, but if someone is not engaging what are the uni meant to do, how else do they reach the student if they are not attending classes or answering emails / haven't requested a deferral etc? I'm fully aware that spiralling mental health means engaging with tutors / lectures / pastoral care even health care professionals can be nigh on impossible, it's a very tricky situation and there isn't an easy answer to this.

• If a student has visited support services with a mental health issue that has not been resolved, do not tell them they cannot have a follow up appointment with Uni support services until the next academic year.
If support services haven't managed to help resolve the issue, then it would be potentially unethical to keep offering a service that isn't working. I don't know if the university support services are run by actual qualified healthcare professionals, if so they should be able to refer on to NHS services. If they are more a support team without clinical training, then there are problems with record keeping and confidentiality.

Yes better funding is needed. Having out reach mental health teams visiting universities on a weekly basis could be a way forward. But you can't put the onus on lecturers/ tutors or pastoral care to support illnesses. I wouldn't expect a tutor to give me crutches for my broken leg, because it's not their remit.

Mental health is very complicated, it needs more research, it needs de-stigmatising, it needs a ton of money poured into. We all need much better understanding, but putting the onus on universities is not the answer. Blaming parent is abhorrent. This is an illness, it's no one's fault.

A fail to act in a duty of care resulting in death would result in a charge of gross negligence manslaughter against either an organisation or individuals working in it. I’m really not sure that’s appropriate for a person employed to offer counselling sessions for mild to moderate MH issues and general student support. A person who isn’t qualified to prescribe medication, provide more complex counselling or diagnose anything. And I can’t see anyone wanting to work in such a job where that hangs over their head all the time. I think it’s grossly disproportionate.

Or for someone employed to teach and research

Disagree about making universities somehow liable and ‘a safe place’. Sadly, if a young person is minded to take their own life, nowhere will be a safe place and nothing will prevent them doing so.
Employer liability is entirely different to what is being discussed here.

OP, the petition is nowhere near the number of signatures it requires. That's probably because people don't agree with the premise that unis should be responsible for what you are describing. Employers also do't have a "duty of care" for employees. They have responsibilities under various peices of legislation but not a"duty of care"

Lots of university teaching is done by precarious workers that are paid a low rate per module. It's really hard to imagine how unis deliver these kinds of suggestions without a great deal of reform.