Mentions:
1: Greene, Jamie (Con - West Scotland) unwelcome gifts that the season too often offers.Sadly, last year, 762 of our fellow Scots completed suicide - Speech Link
2: Yousaf, Humza (SNP - Glasgow Pollok) Police Scotland is also working in partnership with other emergency services, student bodies, universities - Speech Link
Written Evidence Nov. 15 2023
Inquiry: FraudFound: as the perfect mechanism for terrorists to exploit.55 An example of terrorists using student loan
Mar. 28 2024
Source Page: Teacher misconduct panel outcome: Mr Aqib KhanFound: You showed Student H a topless photo of yourself and/or a photo of you “flexing your muscles” Schedule
Asked by: Alberto Costa (Conservative - South Leicestershire)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what plans his Department has to provide funding for improving the mental health of 18-25 year olds in further or higher education; and whether it is his policy to support the introduction of legislation to make it compulsory for universities and colleges to (a) record suicides and (b) facilitate joined up monitoring of mental health of young people in further and higher education.
Answered by Robert Halfon
Every student death is a tragedy. The government is committed to doing all we can to prevent these devastating events, which we know have a profound and lasting impact on family and friends.
Whilst we do not plan to legislate higher education (HE) and further education (FE) providers to publicly record suicide numbers, this department does believe it is important to understand the overall trends in HE suicides and share best practice when tragedy does occur. This is why we asked the Office of National Statistics (ONS) to publish an updated linked data analysis on HE suicides. The ONS published the refreshed dataset and analysis on 31 May 2022, which included HE student deaths by suicide from the 2016/17 to 2019/20 academic years, and this can be found here: https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/birthsdeathsandmarriages/deaths/articles/estimatingsuicideamonghighereducationstudentsenglandandwalesexperimentalstatistics/2017to2020.
In order to better support student mental health, especially with regards to the transition between school or college into HE, the department has asked the Office for Students to distribute £15 million of funding to HE providers in 2023/24 to support student mental health, including providing additional support for transitions from school or college to university, with a particular focus on providing counselling services for students. Funding has already supported 32 providers to actively participate in groups in the seven NHS regions to explore more formal partnership working, with the ultimate aim of closing any gaps in mental health provision for students.
To support the development and implementation of a whole college approach to mental health and wellbeing, the department is giving all colleges in England access to senior mental health leads training by 2025. We are also providing record funding for children and young people’s mental health support in the NHS long term plan, through which we are investing at least an additional £2.3 billion a year above 2018/19 levels into mental health services in England by March 2024. This funding will enable an additional 345,000 people under the age of 25 to get the mental health support they need.
The department also recognises that early intervention is critical to prevent the progression and escalation of mental health issues. For this reason, we are introducing Mental Health Support Teams (MHSTs) in schools and colleges. These teams offer support to young people experiencing common mental health issues and facilitate smoother access to external specialist support.
An important step towards HE providers delivering mental health support is student disclosure of mental health conditions. It is vital that students disclose their mental health conditions to their HE provider, so that they can be supported, rather than suffering in silence.
Students are actively encouraged to declare a mental health condition when they apply for university via UCAS. Prospective students can enter any needs related to their mental health difficulty, which is then passed on to the course providers so they can consider additional support, including support prior to commencing the course.
The department supports the Suicide Safer Universities framework, led by Universities UK and Papyrus, which can be found at: https://www.universitiesuk.ac.uk/what-we-do/policy-and-research/publications/suicide-safer-universities. As well as supporting universities to prevent student suicides and support students and families after the death of a student, this framework includes additional guidance on information sharing and postvention guidance (actions after a death by suspected suicide), which can be found here: https://www.universitiesuk.ac.uk/what-we-do/policy-and-research/publications/features/suicide-safer-universities/sharing-information.
Mentions:
1: Greg Smith (Con - Buckingham) some other hostages, Israel is taking a huge risk, releasing convicted terrorists, including would-be suicide - Speech Link
2: Rishi Sunak (Con - Richmond (Yorks)) The effects of that action are yet to be felt, but will impact 150,000 student dependants. - Speech Link
3: Rishi Sunak (Con - Richmond (Yorks)) bringing forward measures on top of the very significant restrictions that we have already announced on student - Speech Link
Mentions:
1: Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (Green - Life peer) 2018, regarding Abu Dhabi, the Manchester City football team and the case of Matthew Hedges, a PhD student - Speech Link
2: Lord Hayward (Con - Life peer) tragic that the person who designed the first Olympic village, which was in Berlin in 1936, committed suicide - Speech Link
Written Evidence Nov. 09 2023
Inquiry: Access to public services for young disabled peopleFound: Regular opportunities should be made available should a student want further advice, particularly
Sep. 25 2023
Source Page: Suicide Bereavement Support Service: evaluation report - year 2Found: Suicide Bereavement Support Service: evaluation report - year 2
To have a joined up approach between Primary Mental Health Service and Student Mental health services so that vital information is shared and future suicides are prevented
Found: My daughter lost her life through suicide whilst studying at University the Inquest was concluded by
Mentions:
1: John Nicolson (SNP - Ochil and South Perthshire) we have heard harrowing stories about vulnerable young people fed content persuading them to commit suicide - Speech Link
2: Chris Evans (LAB - Islwyn) I saw the amazing example of the Kingston University digital skills campaign, which involves every student - Speech Link
3: Saqib Bhatti (Con - Meriden) that does not cross the threshold of illegality but is harmful to them, such as content that promotes suicide - Speech Link