Trigger warning - Deaths/suicides at uni

[GreenLunchBox]

After being shocked/saddened by some close to home uni deaths this year I did a search and it seems it's not rare. Five at Cambridge
just by July this year, for example www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2022/jul/11/university-of-cambridge-launches-inquiry-after-five-suspected-suicides

Someone did a recent series of freedom of information requests and most unis have a few deaths each year, with suicide being a common cause

Does anyone know if the rate is higher than in the general population in this age group? If so, is it a problem that's getting worse, and what can we do about it?

@Adversity
I do not see why universities have to be blamed wholly for suicides. Why don’t we name snd shame employers? Plenty of men have jobs who kill themselves but we only publicly blame universities. I do think a tiny minority of young people should not go away to university where there is any concern about MH. Go to a local one or defer. It’s not worth it. Of course that decision brings more angst and so does work if you are not well. Trying to do what’s best is really hard but we have very skewed reporting that makes it look like universities are the big problem areas. In addition men don’t talk about feelings.

I wonder if it is more common where kids go away for uni rather than continue living at home & go to a local one. I think it’s a lot to cope with for many 18 year olds. Friends who had dc with mental health issues encouraged them to go local or at least close enough they could commute from home if things got tough.

The universities talk as if they are getting better with mental health issues but I'm not sure that's the case. Two of my DCs have had mental health issues & one found it impossible to get any support, at all. The other emailed to their tutor but due to the strikes didn't get a reply for a month. Then the letters from the uni started arriving saying they weren't submitting course work & ran the risk of being thrown off the course. That was helpful, as you can imagine. Then Covid hit.

I actually agree with this to an extent, though I do think that universities can and should be supporting their students as much as possible and of course everyone should be trying to prevent suicide, which is a terrible, wrenching tragedy. But when all the focus is put on universities I think it can both be misleading - the fact that someone was a student isn't necessarily the sole factor in a suicide anymore than all suicides are work-related. I also think the pressure on universities to be the sole mental health care providers for their students and to be held solely responsible for their wellbeing is basically a massive sticking plaster on the total collapse of the NHS in this area, which really fails young adults who aren't students.

I'm really sorry to hear that, but again I think expectations aren't always realistic here. Your child's tutor was probably an academic with no training at all in mental health and whose role would basically be to signpost to other university services or suggest that they see their GP.

It sounds like they didn't do that though

Yes that's true. It's like how schools are expected to be social and mental health workers to make up for child mental health services being in a state

Bristol uni had a spate of suicides

@TeachesOfPeaches
Yes. They were continually named and shamed and had a court case find against them for discriminating under the Equalities Act. The university had not made the course adjustments they should have done for the student with severe anxiety. Academics, I think, find this type of case very difficult. When do adjustments mean the student isn’t really doing the same degree as the others? I don’t know the answer but it clearly led to slow decision making. This young lady could not do presentations and they didn’t find an alternative.

At the same time Bristol had its higher numbers, York had exactly the same. So why is it just Bristol that was in the press? Mainly because cases such as the one above went to court and highly qualified parents made sure it did.

Various reasons are put forward as to why suicides occur. DC not good fit for course. Inability of university to notice anything is wrong. High pressure students put on themselves: used to being a high achiever. Drugs and alcohol. Existing MH that was never treated in new city. Home circumstances and money worries etc etc. it’s a long list. Many universities have improved their MH services but they are never going to stop suicides. However I do think parents of DC with high anxiety do have to work with DC over where they should go and what course would be better. If presentations are a huge issue, is there a degree that doesn’t have them? Is a prestigious university all
that matters? Drill down into content and make sure all needs can be met and course is best fit.

@TeachesOfPeaches from my own experience Bristol have learned. Students can now give permission for the Uni to contact parents if they are concerned (as students are adults, usually they can't). During covid they were amazing at looking after my DD and her friends during the 14 day isolations in their flats as freshers. In fact they provided they so much food they didn't need to shop for weeks. And made welfare calls regularly.
It happens everywhere I'm afraid. My brother was at Oxford over 40 years ago and a course mate lay down on the train tracks 5 weeks into first term. Pressure was too much. V v sad.

A parent recently sued them over negligence.

Bristol also have the annual disaster with accommodation though, with students being shipped off to Cardiff etc - which doesn't imply much in the way of pastoral care.

cks.nice.org.uk/topics/mental-health-in-students/

@NetWithHoles not sure they've sent them to Cardiff yet. Newport and Bath were a few years ago. Loads of new halls now thankfully.
I'm not the Bristol Uni marketing board - just a mum of a current student (who loves the place).

We have regular meetings with our tutees. We don’t specifically ask about MH but we try to get to know them well enough to make them comfortable bringing up any concerns. We definitely don’t deal with MH concerns directly! But we can and do refer to University Counselling and on the odd occasion I have walked a student over for an urgent appointment. With the student’s permission, we will also flag MH concerns to our Student Support Officer for follow up. And I will encourage, though obviously not require, informal check ins over a cup of tea while things are fragile.

The problem is that the Counselling Service is dreadfully overstretched. You need to be practically suicidal to get more than three appointments, and waiting lists are long. But we have lots of shiny new buildings.

I agree that students have it no worse and probably better than the general population of young adults. But every suicide is a tragedy and beyond that student MH is a major concern to which universities mainly pay lip service. I don’t see that changing until students and parents start delving beneath the surface when making the decision about where to Firm.

PS. Our DSA and Office for Students with Disabilities work very well. The problem is getting MH support for students who fall into distress at uni. I think both halves of that are typical. I certainly do not wish to alarm parents of students with managed special needs - once your student has a working plan, on the whole British universities are good about providing support (in my experience).

@Adversity I think it is very simplistic to say the 'cover them up'.
Any young death is tragic. Death by suicide seems even more so. When your child has taken their life, publicity around it is the last thing any family would want.
Suicide is complex. The fact that a person might be a student at the time does not mean you can hold the University responsible anymore than you can hold responsible the wife who was divorcing a man who takes his life, or, as a pp said the employers, or the landlord, or the person who turned down a date or whatever thing it is that seemed to push the person into that action on that day.

I think the key to a lot of this is ensuring course and living away from home will not exacerbate issues. I have read a lot about why suicides happen at university and so many DC have serious issues before they get near a university and not enough thought is given to where and what course. Never mind nhs facilities. I feel lecturers get the blame and other students for not noticing. It should be that students get better first and then access higher education.

Yes, @TizerorFizz. Everyone understandably wants to believe that uni will be a fresh start - which it is - and the DC’s vulnerabilities will go away - which they don’t on the whole. Much better to vanquish your daemons first!

FWIW, I believe the university counsellors are university employees, not NHS. That is why I mentioned the shiny new buildings - it is a question of where the unis are choosing to spend money. But on the subject, every DC should register with a GP at uni. One of the reasons is that they can then be referred for NHS MH care locally.

I’ve thankfully never been close to a student suicide but I don’t have the sense that blame has attached to anyone in our School. Still, it is unspeakably awful.

There were some positives from Bristol, I think a family campaigned quite hard for there to be a way that students can allow their parents to be informed about possible stress. That does seem sensible, the jump from home to University could have more of a safety net.

I don’t know if it’s relevant as this is a specific case, but I have a friend whose child they believe is an on / off suicide risk, and has had ongoing mental health issues for some years. They still felt that their child should be going to University like the rest of their peers, in 2 years time, and I was concerned that they felt almost like the University would take over the level of care she needed. We talked about considering a University where their child could be home based at least for the first couple of years until some stability could be achieved. I guess I was just surprised that they had not considered home based University. Not that this is the complete answer, of course.

I think there can be a desperation to be seen as the same as your friends. It’s surely difficult to set up the same supervision away from home?

Marketing and getting in more snd more students is driven by funding policies. However expert staff still cannot help if DC don’t refer. I think it’s very difficult for universities as it appears to be for anyone else to spot when a young person is irretrievably distressed. Bristol was not the only university that treated 18 year olds as decision-making adults. They all did. There’s no doubt for some, that needed to change.

Haven't RTFT but I remember suicides at Cambridge. The uncomfortable truth is that there are a lot of students who have been through the pressure of parents expecting them to follow certain degree courses (e.g. veterinary science when they want to go to art college) and they crack. There are also those who have been used to being the best in their school, and suddenly they're just average. They were the ones that I remember really struggled mentally.

These days you also have to go into big debt to go to university. That is a new added pressure that wasn't there for our generation in the 1990s. For me, university was the happiest time of my life, away from an abusive household where I had to walk on eggshells. So it can work both ways.

It’s not a debt. Most don’t pay it off. It’s not a bank loan.,Years ago parents paid so don’t really see why students didn’t feel obliged to parents but worry about what is a student tax. It’s this mechanism that has allowed more to go to university in the first place. My DH didn’t get the money his parents were supposed to contribute and had to work. Huge increases in student numbers don’t suggest finance worries many. It’s usually a combination of things. If money is a big worry, and students don’t like the idea of the grad tax, it’s another reason to think of an alternative to university.

Of course it's a debt. A loan is a debt. The fact that not all students pay it off does not take away from the fact that by year 3 students have 9,000 x 3 loans. As an associate professor I would say its not necessarily a good thing that there has been much wider participation at university as some students, with the greatest will in the world, struggle with academic study at this level.

In the 90s my parents paid nothing but I took out student loans to cover rent and living costs. Now students need to cover both living costs and fees. We are one of the only countries in Europe that gets so many students into debt to get a university education.