Mental health and suicides at uni.

[justasking111]

The report is of one uni. but is it their fault. We put two DCs through uni. from 1999 to 2003, one of their friends from school did have problems and came home. Is it the pressure of work, the pressure of money, or should some students not be expected to go to uni. would they be happier at a local day college??

www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/entry/uea-student-deaths-mental-health_uk_5c8a47dfe4b0fbd766213fbc?ncid=fcbklnkukhpmg00000001&fbclid=IwAR26GrADNgCTpO5t24QH4QxVkBClSsQ3JwGn1eqSQifxNMmG_w1K4Dyf0z4

With there being so many students, I do not see how staff can care for them all and be aware of problems. Perhaps the students themselves need educating on how to look out for each other. If a person in the flat stays in their room, know how to alert the uni.

Sometimes people feel that not getting all the details maybe a sign that the authorities want to make it hush hush. Actually, They may be following guidelines.

The Samaritans do an excellent brochure on media guidelines for reporting suicide.

www.samaritans.org/about-samaritans/media-guidelines/best-practice-suicide-reporting-tips/#

Please read this - I think it’s really important that everyone discussing this topic understands why.

Maybe something like this for every student to read so that they can help each other.

www.samaritans.org/how-we-can-help/support-and-information/worried-about-someone-else/

If a person in the flat stays in their room, know how to alert the uni.

Their flatmates don't always know though do they? Some flats seem really close and mix a lot and others very much keep themselves to themselves.

My dd was in a flat of 10. 3 or 4 of them became very close but the others she would see in passing. She had no idea if they were there or gone home, and they didn't know about her.

I'm on a facebook site for parents of students and the number of posts on there from parents whose children are struggling with flatmates - ignoring them, causing problems, bullying, taking drugs, being violent - and the flatmates have no idea how to deal with it.

I do think it gets even worse once they move out of halls because then they really are on their own.

I don't think that students should all be expected to look after each other. I mean, I'd hope they would, but not as a formal expectation, and not as a realistic solution either.

Some won't be able to, some actively won't want to or worse could be rude or mean, some don't speak the same language, some won't see their housemates or classmates due to schedules. Others will over-invest. And again depression can be hard to spot - that guilt shouldn't be on students.

If I sound hugely pessimistic here, it's because I've dealt with family members with depression and suicide attempts, and there are no quick reliable fixes.

I agree. It's not fair to make students responsible for each other. It can be dangerous, too. You could end up in a situation where students hide a suicide attempt, or an A&E visit, or other worrying behaviour, because they think they are able to cope with a friend's problems without alerting anyone.

In fact, one of the most difficult things is making students feel they can approach you about someone else without being seen as a 'grass'.

So we cannot expect students to help each other, we cannot expect staff who are overworked, short staffed and given too many students to manage, so basically we need to accept that as in adult post education life some students will fall through the cracks and die.

I suppose that is a reality students need to accept, some people just do not make it.

It's not about 'expecting' things.

I do think students help each other, and they can be amazing. I definitely expect staff to try their best. It's not about them being overworked - it's about them being under-trained. A person who isn't trained to deal with a suicidal student could spend hours and days worrying, but still make things worse.

And it certainly isn't about accepting some people don't make it.

I think what needs to happen is a recognition that life is hard for students. Much harder than it has been at other times. We need to stop telling students it's all wonderful and they are so lucky. We need to stop perpetuating this stupid idea that students are entitled 'snowflakes'. We need to start giving them the tools to seek help (and that needs to start very early on). Ideally, we also need good, trained, professional help, and the structure to make sure students feel able to access it.

Sarah, can the unis. afford good, trained, professional help??

Here is a true story told to me by a gentleman now in his late sixties.

"When I was at college, about 20 years old, I shared a two up two down terraced house with 3 others. At weekend there was one lad who stayed the weekends and the rest of us went off home usually not going to the house until Monday evening. The lad that stayed came from a big family and unbeknown to the rest of us was struggling with the course work and desperately isolated. He actually shared a room with me and I did not realise his problems as I was out a lot either at college dance one day a week or often working on cars to help me through college and I had problems of my own. I think that we all thought that he had friends of his own but in reality he was an outsider with false bravado, desperately lonely and not ready for life outside of the family home. Unusually I returned to the house after midnight on a Sunday. I went in very quietly so as to to disturb him. Then I heard a noise from the basement. I went down to the basement and he had been sharpening a kitchen knife on a stone step tn order to cut his own wrists. I delivered a heavy punch to his head and grabbed the knife as he stood up to face me with it as he had no intention of handing it over. I dragged upstairs to our room and had a long talk whilst plying him with some of my scotch to make sure he was out for the count whilst I slept.

Between me and the other two guys we tutored him. I was hydraulics and applied maths, somebody else covered pure maths and somebody else structural analysis and so on. We also took him under our wing and got him to meet friends of ours who were from several countries (Greece, Taiwan, Iraq, Persia as was, and several others and in were Leeds all weekends.I also spoke with the head of year as Tony was apparently way behind on attendance and coursework (as was I ). At the next exams he scraped a pass but was given the opportunity to repeat his second year and did with good results but of course I had then finished my final year and was off home to my wife and child. I can only hope that he carried on successfully."

SarahAndQuack

I absolutely agree. Even silly things - some international students are only 17 when they start uni because of how school years are arranged abroad. My son had a flatmate in his 1st year. Consequently they couldn't go to any bars or clubs or to the club on campus because they were underage. How isolating must that be? Even simply grouping all the 17 year olds together would mitigate that a little.

At the uni Dd wants, they have staff on the accommodation site during working hours and a security guard 24 hours a day. There is a counsellor lady twice a week at the accommodation reception to discuss any accommodation issues that reception can’t deal with. She will have a personal tutor and a peer mentor (older student doing the same course). The peer mentor sees her once a week for the first term. There is an independent student advice centre at the student union and a university led welfare service. We were shown the location of all of these at the post application offer day. She will also have support from her department and they introduced themselves and what they can offer. We felt she will be fully supported.

The NHS 10 year plan is that CAMHS services will go up to 25 (believe it when I see it..) but this is because the 18-25 year olds are still adolescent and highly vulnerable at this transitional point of life. Their risk taking, impulse control, mood swings are still often all over the place and this is a period in which they need good mental health support (I know it should be available at all ages). They do not necessarily meet thresholds for adult services and they fall through the gaps. University is one of these highly vulnerable times.
This is about funding. Not just about university funding but about mental health service funding. It's terrible.
But equally, with recognition that these young people are not fully grown up- there should be more flexibility about involving parents. If they insist they do not want parents involved that's one thing, but it should be considered and suggested more often than it is- as it is within other adolescent mental health services. Young people ultimately choose, but they are helped to think about it.

can the unis. afford good, trained, professional help?

Most universities have good, trained, professional help.

Whether they have enough, and whether it's being used as well as it should be, I'm less sure (like cory).

What is very common is that a university has hired professionals to cover student mental health, but that students in dire need don't feel able to access that help. There are lots of reasons for that (and of course, some people who are suicidal just don't access help), but a big reason is that students often want to talk to people they feel they know, so they come to their lecturers and tutors, who are not trained.

justasking, I just read that story.

Well, at least let's be thankful that sort of thing is extremely rare. How awful.

I do think, from my experience anyway, the problem is student numbers.
I had regular tutorials with all my students, knew them all well, and could check up on them if they weren’t attending or their work was unsatisfactory.
It was all very friendly. They could come to my office anytime. If I couldn’t see them then I arranged another time, usually the same day.
Sadly I think those days have gone as they were starting to change before I left.

woodpigeons

That must certainly be a factor. My dd gets 6 contact hours a week - and that's with all different staff. How can anyone get to know students in that short amount of time?

But Weetabix - should we be expected to get to know students' personal situations? Of course on a human level I'll help any student who comes to me with a problem, I include the details for our welfare services at the end of every lecture's slides, we run sessions on mental health and resilience. Students who do seek help and have arrangements in place through disability services will be kept an eye on. If a student comes to me with a problem I'll encourage them to speak to their family if they think the family would be supportive, same as I would with a friend or colleague.

But we're not teachers or babysitters, we're not in loco parentis. Our students are adults and we try to treat them as such. (The extent to which they behave that way is a whole other thread, it's been a very long week.) We're also not mental health professionals, not by a long stretch, and there is every possibility we'd make things worse.

We have, unfortunately, had to deal with this issue in my department. Obviously I won't go into details, but of course we were devastated and we've had discussions about what we can do to support students. But monitoring adults' every move and reporting back to their parents simply isn't the answer. Of course you aren't informed about everything that goes on with your child's course. They are adults now and it's up to them how much they tell you. Just as it will be when they get their first job, get married, have children etc.

MindyStClaire

I'm not sure what it is that is going on that I don't know about? Do you mean meeting her personal tutor? I ask her on a fairly regular basis.

And 17 year old students aren't adults are they? Yet they got treated no differently.

University seems to be a very unique situation. Really, when else are you so anonymous? At work, if you don't turn up, people will notice and do something, people will be know you and notice if something isn't right, at home you'll usually have contact with either family or friends yet at uni you are parachuted in not knowing anyone. Yes most of them figure it out and get through ok, even if it isn't a totally positive experience but I can see how easy it could be for someone to slip through the cracks.

I think what I'm taking from this is what I've always feared - unless a student makes the effort to ask for help from someone the chances are that no one will pick up on it.

Why isn't this made clearer at open days?

In all honesty, I think it is only a small minority of people who don't realise it already.

I've answered questions about it at Open Day, but in general, if you start out by explaining that students will be treated as adults, and we won't check up to see if they're in their rooms or out clubbing or whatever, people think you are patronizing them with the obvious.

I work in a University in mental health support. The amount of students seeking support is increasing at a rate we just can not keep up with. Honestly, I don’t know what the answer is. I don’t think universities can be expected to replace the NHS mental health services that any other adult would have to rely on. Students are adults, albeit young ones, and I think we are actually hindered them by ‘hand-holding’ them through university. They need to prepare for their working life after uni, where there won’t be endless extensions available because you’ve got a note from your mental health worker.

On a side note, some of the expectations of parents for the level of support we should be providing is ludricous. We get phone calls daily from parents saying they haven’t heard from their child, sometimes for as little as 3 hours, and can we go and check on their room. We even get this asked when they live off campus in the local area. Again, they are adults, and should be capable of living independently. If you are not capable of living independently then the question needs to be asked if moving away from existing support networks is the right decision. When I was at university, I would have been mortified if my mum had contacted the uni to check up on me! Likewise if a member of staff had come to knock on my halls bedroom, like I have to do to find students on a weekly basis.

But in all honesty, I really don’t know what the answer is. There are clearly far too many young people living with mental health needs and in distress. But I think the issue goes back much further than universities, and needs to be addressed at a much younger age.

Does anyone who works at a university have suggestions to what could be done to improve things?

I haven't read the full thread but I retired from working at a university last year. I was told under no circumstances were we to contact parents as students are legal adults. One mum, whose son was especially vulnerable, phoned me and I told her we could only communicate off the record. We kept in touch over his three years and this helped him to cope. I would not have contacted her about my concerns. Also, during my time there, the university stopped having individual tutors who would see their students in a pastoral role. For some students, for various reasons, life is extremely stressful.

Weetabix I was referring to this part of your post: My dd gets 6 contact hours a week - and that's with all different staff. How can anyone get to know students in that short amount of time? And the general comments on the thread about whether universities should contact parents. As a lecturer, I don't think I should be expected to get to know my students on a personal level. Again, I'm not a terrible person, so if I'm aware of a student with particular problems I'll help where I can. But for the vast majority of students, they have shit attendance for reasons other than mental health.

ForgiveMeFatherForIHaveGinned has said what I've been trying to say much more clearly.

When I was at Cambridge back in the 80s the uni had a high suicide rate (comparatively, not sure about absolutely). One of the arguments made by the uni to retain the old fashioned “bedders” system was that they went into a student’s room every day. Yes they would respect an occasional do not disturb but not for long and they did ask neighbouring students if they had seen person x. If they were concerned they knocked and let themselves in. I think they felt able to intervene because they were often a relative of a college porter or other staff member and so they knew how to raise a concern. It seems to have changed. Not sure if the have outsourced the cleaning to companies but DD reports that she has very little contact with the bedders who often just leave notes for the students to clear up rather than speaking to them. She may just be unlucky but it does seem a shame that something that worked at an informal level has gone.