A new partnership dedicated to improving mental health and wellbeing for students across North Staffordshire has launched this week.
Led by Keele and Staffordshire Universities, Start to Success is joining forces with NHS providers, police, local authorities and colleges to introduce a new integrated community approach to mental health and wellbeing for students in further and higher education.
The partnership was awarded funding of £750,000 by the Office for Students, as part of a major new programme to find innovative ways to combat a sharp rise in student mental health issues and spark a step-change in student support across the country. The funding has been match-funded by Keele and Staffordshire universities, and financial support from other partners has taken to the project total to £2.2million.
Start to Success aims to develop new approaches that can be applied nationally in order to positively impact on student mental health, and a toolkit will be produced and shared across the further and higher education sectors.
Staffordshire University Vice-Chancellor Professor Liz Barnes CBE said: “The mental health and wellbeing of our students is of critical importance to us. As such we are proud to be working with our friends and colleagues at Keele University, as well as partners from across our region, as we commit to taking a whole community approach to mental health and wellbeing in Stoke-on-Trent and Staffordshire.
"With a rich and diverse student population at Staffordshire we are focussed on establishing services and support that increase social mobility and make fundamental differences to the lives of our students. The collective commitment of this partnership is clear to see, and as such, we cannot wait to see the impact that this project will have over the course of the coming months and years.”
Key priorities for the project include a connected training framework, interventions for at-risk groups, a regional mental health campaign, and new multi-agency approaches to student support. Through partnership working with the NHS, Keele and Staffordshire Universities will develop pioneering approaches to assessing and referring students, allowing a more streamlined and sensitive approach to supporting students effectively in both emergency and planned situations. Both universities are already engaged with the Stoke-on-Trent Suicide Prevention Partnership and will develop a regional student-focused Suicide Prevention Action Plan.
Keele University’s Pro Vice-Chancellor and Executive Dean of the Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences, Professor Pauline Walsh, said: “This project could have a transformative impact not only on the wellbeing and mental health of our students but on the education sector nationally. We’re delighted to launch and lead this project which will complement Keele’s dedicated specialist student support services of which I’m already very proud.”
The project will be working with regional partners including Stoke-on-Trent City Council; Staffordshire County Council; Staffordshire Police; North Staffordshire Combined Healthcare NHS Trust; Midlands Partnership Foundation NHS Trust; University Hospitals of North Midlands Foundation Trust; Stoke-on-Trent College; Stoke Sixth Form College; Newcastle and Stafford Colleges Group, and Sport Across Staffordshire and Stoke-on-Trent.