HUB OF HOPE by Tamara Lawrence

Students in crisis can get the right support with just one call.

Living away from home for the first time, managing finances, trying to ‘find your tribe’ – it’s small wonder university students are vulnerable to struggles with their mental health.

Since 2019, a team from the University of Liverpool and Liverpool John Moores, Brownlow Health, The Innovation Agency and Mersey Care NHS Foundation Trust has been working on a multi organisation approach to helping students in Liverpool find the right support.

As the project enters its final year, the focus is on its new liaison model – a way for students to access the services they need through just a single call or visit to a health professional.

“There’s a lot of help available to students, but identifying what support you need and accessing it can be tough,” says Michelle Barsoum, innovation lead on the project.

“We were developing a new pathway – an ‘in one end, out the other’ approach. But students don’t work like this – they might access mental health services via a GP, the urgent care line, or even at A&E. And they might not understand, or even remember, what they’ve been told to do, particularly if they’re in distress.

“The GP system and the universities are massive, and services are changing all the time. We needed a relationship

based system, a hub. So when a student contacts a mental health access point, we can do everything to ensure they get the help they need.”

Michelle says differing levels of experience within services, and even the different language used, can be confusing.

“If someone in student halls says they’re suicidal, the person supporting them might call an ambulance, because that’s the level of their training. If that student calls the urgent care line, the outcome of the same scenario based on an assessment could be completely different.

“I followed up a student who had been discharged by a service as her level of risk was considered low. On her follow up student liaison telephone call, I was concerned she was showing signs of psychosis, so I arranged for her to access Mersey Care’s Early Intervention service for a thorough assessment.

“Previously, that young lady could have slipped under the radar, and reappeared a few months down the line in crisis with her mental health further deteriorating, which could have greatly impacted her life. I’m really proud we were able to get her the help she needed early.”

TO FIND OUT MORE To learn more about the service, get help in a crisis or book an appointment, go to: liverpool.ac.uk/studentsupport/studentmentalhealth

MIND THE GAP

Students say self harm therapy service was the first time they had been truly listened to.

Former student and researcher Danielle Young has noticed improvements since the new student mental health support system was introduced.

When Danielle Young joined the University of Liverpool in 2017 she was struck by the lack of mental health provision for students. Her concerns were starkly emphasised when a fellow student in her halls took her own life.

Since the introduction of the student support programme U-COPE self harm therapy programme, Dani says she has noticed an enormous improvement. Her research project for her Masters in Clinical and Health Psychology was a qualitative review of U-COPE, a self harm therapy service for students at University of Liverpool and Liverpool John Moores University.

U-COPE offers patients who have self harmed six sessions, including a three week gap to enable them to put into practice the techniques they have learned.

“Some of the students I interviewed described it as the best service they had accessed, the first time they felt truly listened to”, says Dani.

Almost 1 in 10 students are thinking about self injury ‘often or all of the time’

(Rethink Mental Illness, 2019)

“They liked the rapid access to the service, and the flexibility to see their therapist both face to face and virtually. Students can continue their therapy when they are off campus, or at times when they might not want to leave home. They can also access a ‘top up’ session after the initial six, should they need it.”

“Self harm is a good indicator of a potential suicide attempt,” says Dani. “U-COPE supports people who were falling through a gap in the service. It’s a novel approach and it’s clearly a popular one.”

STUDENT RESOURCES:

The Samaritans www.samaritans.org Tel: 116 123 (24/7)

MIND mind.org.uk Info line: 0300 123 3393

YoungMinds youngminds.org.uk Text: YM to 85258 (24/7)

Shout giveusashout.org Text: 85258 (24/7)

Kooth kooth.com