Universities to involve trusted contacts when there are serious concerns about a student’s safety or mental health

Universities UK want universities need to have clearer policies on how and when they should involve family, carers and trusted friends when there is considered to be a serious risk to the welfare of a student.

Universities UK (UUK), in partnership with PAPYRUS Prevention of Young Suicide, is today publishing recommendations calling on universities to be more proactive in preventing student suicides. In particular, the new guidance sets out how and when universities should involve families, carers and trusted others when there are serious concerns about the safety or mental health of a student.

The recommendations include:

• Making it mandatory for students to give a trusted contact at registration, being clear that the contact does not have to be a parent, and starting a conversation about when and how these contacts might be involved
• Having check-ins at the start of each academic year for students to update this information and making it easy to update the contact if circumstances change
• Ensuring that universities review their suicide prevention plans and policies to keep students safe, identifying students of concern, assessing risk, working in close partnership with NHS services and, where there are serious concerns, initiating conversations about involving trusted contacts
• Making clear that, although always preferable to gain agreement from the student, where there are serious concerns about a student’s safety or mental health, universities can decide to involve trusted contacts without agreement. Such decisions should always be made in the student’s interests, be taken by appropriately qualified staff, supported by senior leadership, be based on a risk assessment establishing the grounds for serious concern and be properly governed and recorded.