[et_pb_section bb_built=”1″ fullwidth=”off” specialty=”on” _builder_version=”3.17.6″][et_pb_column type=”2_3″ specialty_columns=”4″][et_pb_row_inner admin_label=”Row”][et_pb_column_inner type=”4_4″ saved_specialty_column_type=”2_3″][et_pb_post_title _builder_version=”3.17.6″ featured_placement=”above” locked=”on” \/][et_pb_text _builder_version=”3.17.6″]<\/p>\n
Warning: The following article discusses themes relating to student suicide. If that is not a topic for you then thanks for clicking through and you may prefer instead to read about our support for students elsewhere on Staffnet<\/a>.<\/strong><\/p>\n There has been a lot of media coverage recently about suicide amongst university students, and given such an important topic, I wanted to summarise some of the key issues and comment from a University of Manchester perspective.<\/p>\n The first thing to say is that for the university sector, in line with trends in suicide among young people generally, rates of suicide had been increasing since 2009\/10 (Office for National Statistics data from 2018). However, their most recent analysis, released earlier this year, shows a decline in that rate over the academic years 2016\/17 to 2019\/20, with an average of 3.9 deaths per 100,000. Moreover, the suicide rate for university students in the academic year ending 2020 in England and Wales was even lower at 3 deaths per 100,00 students which also much lower than in the age matched wider population (where the rate is a little over 12 deaths per 100,000).<\/p>\n In common with many bereaved families, I believe that all universities must make every effort to collect information about suicides and many can and should be more open about the number of suspected and confirmed (only a coroner can make such a determination) such cases. Indeed, you may have read a blog post I wrote<\/a> on this point earlier in the year.<\/p>\n At our university, we take very great care to record and examine in detail every suspected suicide and we have developed a good relationship with the local coroner\u2019s team, to the extent that we are routinely notified of any sudden deaths and I am invited to contribute to the subsequent inquest. We have a comprehensive suicide strategy<\/a>, which was developed with input from our students, individuals with lived experience of student suicide and academic colleagues with expertise in this area and over the last 5 years our average rate of suicide (with such small numbers, a rolling average is an appropriate measure) has dropped. So far, this academic year, one of our students is very sadly suspected to have taken their own life.<\/p>\n Universities UK (UUK; the organisation representing most universities) recently published guidance on the approach universities should adopt<\/a> for supporting students on placement. This is particularly aimed at courses such as nursing and education where students will often spend time in a hospital or school and concerns about a drop in attendance or other indicators that the student may be struggling can be harder to connect between different organisations. This work came about following the death of one of our graduates<\/a>, Harrison De George, whilst he was studying for a postgraduate degree at Manchester Metropolitan University. I am working with Harrison\u2019s sister, Isabella, to reflect on our own approaches to students on placement and to consider how we can adopt this new guidance.<\/p>\n Last week, UUK launched further guidelines, calling on universities to be more proactive in preventing student suicides<\/a>. Specifically, this 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. Our university has, for several years, proactively contacted families and other third parties when we have serious concerns about a student, although decisions about when and whether to do so are seldom straightforward, but a case study of our approach is included in the UUK new framework and we have been contacted already by some other universities, who do not have a clear position, but who want to learn from our experience. Later this year a framework to support all universities to respond to suicides with candour and compassion will be launched; work which draws heavily on the approach we use in Manchester.<\/p>\n Several bereaved families known as the Learn Network have recently launched a petition calling for a statutory duty of care for students to be introduced for all universities. You may recall that this was a feature in the high-profile case of Natasha Abrahart<\/a> who died by suicide at the University of Bristol and whose parents, Robert and Margaret, subsequently took civil action. The judge in the subsequent court case found that the University of Bristol was not negligent, but deemed the adjustments made by the University for Natasha\u2019s academic assessment were insufficient. He also though agreed with the University that they did not have a formal duty of care for Natasha.<\/p>\n The concept of a duty of care is a legally complex one. It is easy to see how this applies in a healthcare or primary school setting, where the person being cared for is reliant to a large extent on those working in the setting to protect them from harm. However, in a university the learners are usually adults and whilst we (as with every organisation) have legal obligations under health and safety law and must comply with the Equality Act with respect to, for example, considering reasonable adjustments for a student with a disability, there is not a wider legal duty of care to protect students from the potential of harm caused by their mental health. This is what the bereaved families, some of whom I have come to know well, are petitioning for.<\/p>\n There is not the space here to explore such an important issue in depth but having journeyed with several families through the grief of the loss of their chid to suicide, I can strongly empathise with the arguments being made in favour of such an approach. However, consideration must also be given to the potential unintended consequences of turning to the statute book (quite apart from finding parliamentary airtime). A new legal duty of care may, ironically, lead to some universities being more defensive and some colleagues, at the first sign of a student struggling with their mental health, may rush them to the mental health team out of fear of litigation. This issue has a way to run, but my hope is that the fact it is being debated and explored so widely may at least lead to some form of more explicit sector-wide clarification about the scope of mental health provision expected of our universities.<\/p>\n Student suicide is, understandably, a difficult topic for many, but we should all have the confidence to discuss the issues around it and to ask questions no matter how na\u00efve or difficult they may be. I am therefore always happy to speak to colleagues in more detail, particularly with respect to the context within our own university.<\/p>\n Finally, this is also a good opportunity to remind all of us that information for staff about support for our students, including what to do if you have ever have significant concerns, can always be found prominently on Staffnet<\/a>. If you do not have access to the internet then concerns should be passed through your line manager or by calling the Campus Support and Security control room 24 hours a day on 0161 306 9966.<\/p>\n Dr. Simon Merrywest [\/et_pb_text][et_pb_post_nav _builder_version=”3.17.6″ prev_text=”Previous” next_text=”Next” in_same_term=”off” locked=”on” \/][et_pb_comments _builder_version=”3.17.6″ custom_button=”on” button_text_color=”#ffffff” locked=”on” \/][et_pb_text admin_label=”Related posts” _builder_version=”3.17.6″ locked=”on”]<\/p>\n [\/et_pb_text][\/et_pb_column_inner][\/et_pb_row_inner][\/et_pb_column][et_pb_column type=”1_3″][et_pb_sidebar admin_label=”Subscribe” _builder_version=”3.17.6″ area=”et_pb_widget_area_3″ locked=”on” \/][et_pb_sidebar _builder_version=”3.17.6″ area=”sidebar-1″ show_border=”off” locked=”on” \/][\/et_pb_column][\/et_pb_section]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Warning: The following article discusses themes relating to student suicide. If that is not a topic for you then thanks for clicking through and you may prefer instead to read about our support for students elsewhere on Staffnet.There has been a lot of media coverage recently about suicide amongst university students, and given such an […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":521,"featured_media":2365,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"on","_et_pb_old_content":" [et_pb_section bb_built=\"1\" fullwidth=\"off\" specialty=\"on\" _builder_version=\"3.17.6\"][et_pb_column type=\"2_3\" specialty_columns=\"4\"][et_pb_row_inner admin_label=\"Row\"][et_pb_column_inner type=\"4_4\" saved_specialty_column_type=\"2_3\"][et_pb_post_title _builder_version=\"3.17.6\" featured_placement=\"above\" locked=\"on\" \/][et_pb_text _builder_version=\"3.17.6\"]<\/p> When I\u2019m out and about meeting staff I hear much debate about the why, what, when and how of change in our University. I wanted to share my thoughts on this often contentious topic \u2013 and hear your views too.<\/p> Early in 2020 we will launch our University\u2019s new vision and strategic plan \u2013 Our future. In order to fulfil Our future we need to ensure that we are in a financially sustainable position so that we have the funds to invest in the new staff, facilities and infrastructure which will be needed to bring our plans to life.<\/p> Our Financial Statements<\/a> for 2018\/19, which have been published following approval by the Board of Governors, confirm that more than 95% of our \u00a31.1bn income is spent on our core goals - on our staff and our students - to deliver research, education and social responsibility; with the remainder invested in the long term sustainability of our University. You can find a summary<\/a> of the Financial Statements on StaffNet.<\/p> However, this is a testing time for UK universities, due to the many external factors that have an impact on us - current home tuition fees are falling in real terms, whilst our costs (not just pay but non-pay too) are increasing. There are further and even greater tuition fee funding risks outlined in General Election manifestos as well as a range of Brexit-related risks that could affect our operations. The Office for Students (OfS) demands that we demonstrate both value for money for our students and our financial sustainability (in the sense of being able to invest to deliver our ambitious strategy, rather than survival). There are, of course, also ongoing unresolved national issues around pay and the continuing challenges around funding pensions in the higher education sector.<\/p> Our Financial Statements show an improved operating surplus (3.7% of income compared to \u00a324.7m (2.3%) in 2017\/18), with a rise in income from tuition fees, education contracts and research. As I mentioned earlier, we re-invest the surplus we achieve each year in activity in line with our strategy. Recently our funds have been used to create some new academic and Professional Services posts; to invest in key infrastructure including IT; to invest in some new buildings like our student accommodation at Unsworth Park; to improve the student experience by funding more full-time Residential Life staff and to upgrade a range of buildings and research and teaching spaces and resources. Increasingly it is also invested in environmental sustainability and meeting our ambitious carbon targets. So even when we are making difficult decisions in some parts of the University we continue to invest our surplus.<\/p> Whilst we have reported an operating surplus, our Board of Governors expects us to deliver a much larger surplus than this (at least 5%) if we are to be sustainable in the long-term. Our strategic change programme (including IT Modernisation<\/a>, the Student Experience Programme<\/a>, and the Research Lifecycle Programme<\/a>), alongside our continuous improvement plans, will ensure that we create the financial headroom to invest in people and facilities. The strategic change programme will also enable us to embrace new technologies and new ways of doing things that better support all our staff and students to be the best that they can be.<\/p> Yes, this means that some individual roles will change. New roles (some that we haven\u2019t yet identified) will be created and some roles will no longer be required. I appreciate that this will cause some uncertainty and where that is the case we will do everything we can to support staff, but the alternative is that we never change anything. If we fail to take advantage of advances in technology and develop more joined-up ways of working we will ultimately find ourselves outdated in the eyes of future students, funders and other stakeholders. Staff want to work for a progressive and successful institution, of which they can be proud. This means we cannot stand still.<\/p> When I talk to staff and students I often hear their frustrations about how difficult it be can be to get some straightforward things done, grappling with paper-based, manual and repetitive processes, on outdated systems and infrastructure, all of which serves to increase staff workloads. Everyone wants to do a good job, but regularly feel that our world-class status is earned in spite of our internal systems and processes, not because of them.<\/p> To deliver our new vision and strategic plan we will need to embrace new opportunities and face challenges with courage and determination. That will sometimes mean we have to make tough decisions and no-one is claiming it will be easy or that mistakes will not be made along the way. But where we do have tough choices to make we will commit to implementing changes fairly and with compassion to support the wellbeing of all our colleagues.<\/p> [\/et_pb_text][et_pb_post_nav _builder_version=\"3.17.6\" prev_text=\"Previous\" next_text=\"Next\" in_same_term=\"off\" locked=\"on\" \/][et_pb_comments _builder_version=\"3.17.6\" custom_button=\"on\" button_text_color=\"#ffffff\" locked=\"on\" \/][et_pb_text admin_label=\"Related posts\" _builder_version=\"3.17.6\" locked=\"on\"]<\/p> [related-posts-thumbnails]<\/p> [\/et_pb_text][\/et_pb_column_inner][\/et_pb_row_inner][\/et_pb_column][et_pb_column type=\"1_3\"][et_pb_sidebar admin_label=\"Subscribe\" _builder_version=\"3.17.6\" area=\"et_pb_widget_area_3\" locked=\"on\" \/][et_pb_sidebar _builder_version=\"3.17.6\" area=\"sidebar-1\" show_border=\"off\" locked=\"on\" \/][\/et_pb_column][\/et_pb_section]<\/p>","_et_gb_content_width":"","_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[30],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3535","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-learning-and-students"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.manchester.ac.uk\/viewpoint\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3535","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.manchester.ac.uk\/viewpoint\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.manchester.ac.uk\/viewpoint\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.manchester.ac.uk\/viewpoint\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/521"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.manchester.ac.uk\/viewpoint\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3535"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.manchester.ac.uk\/viewpoint\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3535\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3713,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.manchester.ac.uk\/viewpoint\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3535\/revisions\/3713"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.manchester.ac.uk\/viewpoint\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2365"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.manchester.ac.uk\/viewpoint\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3535"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.manchester.ac.uk\/viewpoint\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3535"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.manchester.ac.uk\/viewpoint\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3535"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
Director for the Student Experience<\/p>\nRelated<\/h1>\n
Related posts:<\/h3>
Prof Ang Davies: What learning do we need to offer our communities?\u202f<\/h2><\/div><\/div><\/a>
Danielle George: What\u2019s next for Flexible Learning?<\/h2><\/div><\/div><\/a>
Miriam Firth: Why do we need Flexible Assessment?<\/h2><\/div><\/div><\/a><\/div>
Improving our financial performance will help to deliver our ambitious future plans, but we must also increase our capacity to create the funds and time to invest in our core goals. One of the ways we can do this is by changing what we do and how we do things.<\/p>Related<\/h1>