Counselling service failing to cope with increasing student demand
The University Counselling Service is seriously underfunded and struggling to cope with the volume of students needing help, according to a senior member of staff. A recent small increase in funding has not been enough to keep up with a 30% rise in student requests over the past year.
Dr. Caroline Hall, head of the Counselling Service, has called for the University to put mental health at the top of its agenda, saying that “increasingly universities are run as business concerns” and that the University should concentrate on being “the best possible place in terms of wellbeing”. The University has responded by promising a full review of the service this autumn.
Despite a new system whereby every student requesting help is given a 30 minute session within two weeks, waiting lists for actual counselling courses remain long.
Dr. Hall detailed the difficulties for counsellors of being aware of students’ problems but being unable to help quickly, saying “it is frustrating to see problems that we could deal with if we had the resources”.
However, she did suggest that the increase may be a sign that students are more aware of what help is available, emphasising that the Counselling Service is not the only means of support accessible to students.
Dr. Hall cited stress as the main cause of students’ mental health problems, saying “there’s too much testing throughout their lives, and we see a definite increase in requests around exam time”, going on to compare York to Oxford and Cambridge for the amount of academic stress suffered by students.
The severity of students’ problems has also increased, with questionnaires given to students to evaluate their needs revealing that many are serious enough to merit consulting a GP.
York’s rise in students using the Counselling Service is reflected in a nation-wide increase in mental health problems among students, with recent studies finding that one in four students will suffer from such problems during their time at university, and are more at risk than other groups of young people.
Dr. Hall criticised the Government for its higher education policy, saying “I get very angry at the government for sending lots of people to university as it doesn’t suit everybody”, also suggesting that that financial concerns “might be a part of it”.
The need for the Counselling Service to find ways of better serving students’ requests with their limited funding has also raised, and Dr. Hall has called for students to suggest ways of improving the service.
