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.

Safer systems and practices are needed, supported by a statutory requirement to exercise reasonable care and skill when teaching students
That's just a complete word salad. What reasonable care and skills are not currently being exercised whilst teaching students?
It's quite ridiculous to campaign for something you can't even define.

Several poster have asked you to clarify what you mean. Employers do not have a duty to provide mental health services for employees. They do have a duty around health and safety but this also covers anyone who is on the premises too. They have a duty to make reasonable adjustments under disability legislation too. They don't have any duty to liasie with families of employees. I've had two children through university and one struggleed with his mental health but I don't agree that the university owed him anything other than to allow him to use his MH as mitigating circumstances.

@Sophforthe100 - most people have no idea what you are suggesting and don’t understand the concept of duty of care. To be honest the lack of interest in the welfare of others is indicative of the AIBU boards more generally, I’m sure in real life there’s a lot more interest in reasonable measures to prevent suicide.

The whole of the UK fails people when it comes to mental health issues. It would be a bit of a joke to make this all about universities not having sufficient mental health resources when the actual country doesn’t either.

Again, you don't seem to understand what duty of care actually means.

You're right that employers have a duty to protect someone "from reasonably foreseeable harm, caused either by direct injury, or by failing to act" - but all that means is that they have to keep the workplace safe. That means risk assessments, making sure the stairs are safe, making sure stuff on shelves isn't going to fall on someone's head, making sure people get correct training when it comes to heavy lifting or working alone.

It doesn't mean that the employer is responsible for someone's mental state and that they're at fault if an employee harms themselves or has a breakdown.

Well if they should be treated as any adult and parents not to be informed without their consent
I don't see why bother preventing any suicide. Up to the person killing themselves. Maybe we should make it clear easier for them.

DC starving herself but it's her choice, I should not interfere....

most people have no idea what you are suggesting and don’t understand the concept of duty of care
On the contrary, most people understand the concept perfectly, and understand when and in what circumstances it's applicable.
It's actually op who is full of flowery, meaningless phrases having no actual understanding of the logic behind them.

You're her parent, of course you should interfere. Random people at the bus stop? Probably not.

On the contrary, it's the OP who doesn't appear to understand what duty of care means.

People DO care about preventing suicide - they're just saying that universities are not responsible for the mental health of their students. If someone is struggling, they need to speak to their doctor.

Explain what your definition of all this is then. Give some comparable examples of an employer and a university student and what would be different for each of them, or failing that, what OP is actually arguing for?

I think this thread and the petition is a classic example of where bad laws are made out of the best intentions. People have a huge sympathy with what the OPs experience is, not least the experiences of those who have struggled with their MH and felt like ending their life is the only way away from those uncomfortable feelings. But it doesnt make great law to try to say that x, y and z should take responsiblity to prevent that.

You can't compare a parent/child relationship to the relationship between a university and a student.

The key word here is “reasonable”. Proper funding for mental health services that benefit everyone (including the many groups that have a higher suicide rate than university students) is something that most people can get on board with. What is not reasonable is the parent who was screaming down the phone at my colleague about our department’s apparently outdated system of having deadlines (even with a generous system of extensions) for assessed work which - she claimed - would drive her child to suicide. Making lecturers legally responsible for preventing an act of suicide as a response to a normal course expectation is not reasonable.

They do have a similar duty of care. For example, if a student came to harm while in a laboratory because the University hadn't taken reasonable safety precautions, the University would be responsible. They shouldn't be responsible for things that happen to students that aren't the result of university actions though, just as workplaces aren't responsible. Neither workplaces or universities have a legal obligation to provide mental health care services and neither should they. That is the nhs's job.

Can you define what "failing to act" would actually look like in practice @Sophforthe100 ?

Sorry but as a parent of an 18y old I can not really interfere without my child's consent, which hasn't been given . I can not drag her to the eg GP, I can't talk to her GP etc.

But actually if I saw a random person on the bus trying to commit suicide I would interfer, or at least try

You're joking, right?

My university has removed access to counselling and to wellbeing services for staff in order to concentrate on supporting students. I line manage academic staff who are struggling to cope. The idea that our employer is providing something to them that students don’t get is rather back to front. But, nonetheless, the university is complying with the employer’s duty of care, it’s just that that duty of care does not mean what some people would like it to.

OP I agree that more needs to be done for young people's mental health. All young people's not only students'.

I'm also formerly a lecturer at a British university who left b/o the poor working conditions. The sector has suffered badly from Tories' contempt for expertise and general starving of public services.

In the absence of extra resources, all that would result from making universities suable for student suicides would be more box-ticking, efforts to limit liability. Not really helpful.

OP, I know you think universities provide "duty of care" for staff but not students but what do you think this "care" involves?

The kind of things that “duty of care” refers to in an employment context include

• Healthy working environment
• Good practice with Rotas eg not allowing people to work 72 hours without a break
• Access to occupational health, work-related counselling
• Reasonable adjustments to role, environment etc
• Organising welfare checks if someone is unexpectedly absent
• Kindness and pastoral support if someone isn’t “acting themself” at work

A pp is right that it isn’t right that universities have more legal responsibility for their employees than their students.

Fascinating how worked up those posting in opposition to this are getting though. Perhaps the academics should consider why their working environments are so toxic.

But you’ve just made our point, you’re her mother so you should take responsibility if anyone should. Why don’t parents have a statutory duty of care after their child is 18? Should they?

Bar the welfare checks my uni did provide all of that. From what my friends in other places said, their unies do too.
Unfortunately, it would not be reasonable to expect uni with thousands of students to check on everyone when they don't turn up. Because they often don't as I found out!

Re working breaks. I would consider students more like contractors or self employed if we would be comlaring it, so that doesn't apply.

We know why our working environments are toxic. It's because education has become thoroughly commodified with more and more unreasonable demands - and more and more hours added to our workload - every year. The latest, it seems, is that we are expected to be in loco parentis with a legal duty to prevent students from committing suicide when our workloads only allocate 40% of our hours to teaching and student support. I wonder how many parents would be happy with the idea of being prosecuted if their child committed suicide? In my experience, a significant number of students experiencing poor mental health have issues stemming from their home life. Why should lecturers have this responsibility but not parents?

I wonder how many parents would be happy with the idea of being prosecuted if their child committed suicide? In my experience, a significant number of students experiencing poor mental health have issues stemming from their home life. Why should lecturers have this responsibility but not parents?
It's truly baffling.