Student mental health evidence: guidance and resources

Toolkits, guidance, reports and impact evaluations to support student mental health interventions.

TASO resources

Here you will find useful resources developed as part of our student mental health project. Please note that this is not exhaustive and we welcome submissions of any new resources via research@taso.org.uk

These resources include a spreadsheet detailing all the studies in our research and how they were categorised, the methodology of the evidence review, gaps in the evidence outlining which interventions have a stronger evidence base and where research needs to go next, and further guidance on adopting and evaluating your practices.

External guidance and frameworks

Minding our future – Universities UK (UUK), 2018
Guidance to improve the coordination of care between the NHS and universities, so that all students can access the care they need.
StepChange Framework – Universities UK (UUK), 2020
Guidance on developing strategies for the whole university approach.
Student analytics – Core specification for engagement and wellbeing analytics, Jisc and Professor Edward Peck, 2023.
The report uses a pilot project at the University of Northumbria as a model of best practice to outline a core specification for wellbeing analytics.
Suicide Safer Universities – Universities UK (UUK) and Papyrus, 2018
Guidance on building strategies for prevention, intervention and postvention regarding student suicide.

External toolkits

Education for Mental Health Toolkit – Advance HE, 2022
Toolkit which ran pilots with King’s College London, Derby and Aston on strategies for embedding wellbeing into the curriculum. Please see evaluation reports for the related learnings from this project, including case studies.
Severity Index – South East Wales Partnership, Cardiff University and South East Wales NHS Trust, 2023
Cardiff’s development of a severity index for practitioners to use so they know when and how to escalate to severe cases of mental distress.
Student Services Partnerships Evaluation and Quality Standards (SPEQS) – University College London (UCL) and University of Sheffield, 2022
The toolkit aims to be a practical resource to facilitate partnership working. The toolkit was produced as a result of the Office for Students funded Student Mental Health Partnerships project. All the resources and publications are open access and available on the SPEQS website. For more information on the toolkit, please see Jenna Lexon in conversation with Dr Emma Broglia on the student-led SMaRteN, All Things Mental Health in March 2022. You can also watch Emma Broglia in conversation with John de Pury on the HE Professional platform.

Examples and evaluations of student mental health interventions

Catalyst fund: Supporting mental health and wellbeing for postgraduate research students, Office for Students, 2020
Projects funded to address postgraduate mental health from March 2018 to January 2020. For the related evaluation report, please see the UK Research and Innovation (UKRI) Evaluation Report.
Mental health funding competition: Using innovation and intersectional approaches to target mental health support for students, Office for Students, 2023
Details of the funded projects as well as case studies and videos from student co-creators.
The Role and Impact of Specialist Mental Health Mentoring, University Mental Health Advisers Network (UMHAN), 2020
UMHAN’s white paper on Mental Health Mentoring, including their impact evaluation.

Reports and projects about whole-institution and collaborative approaches to support

Information Sharing and Student Suicide, British Association for Counselling and Psychotherapy (BACP) and University Mental Health Advisers Network (UMHAN), 2022
Report on practitioner perspectives on information sharing and risk management, based on a survey. The report also includes a case study on the adoption of the UUK Suicide Safer guidance at Cardiff University.
Mental Health Challenge Competition: Achieving a step change in mental health outcomes for all students, Office for Students, 2022
Ten collaborative projects bringing together a range of universities, colleges and organisations to implement student mental health interventions from 2018 until 2022. For the full evaluation report, learnings on what works for student mental health and learnings on co-creation with students, please see the final evaluation reports.
Mind the Gap: Improving student mental health support through higher education and NHS partnerships, Office for Students, 2022
Drawing on the findings from the Mental Health Challenge Competition, the report reflects on learnings on effective practice and common challenges in developing strategic partnerships between NHS providers, community mental health services and higher education providers.
Student Counselling Outcomes Research and Evaluation (SCORE) project, University of Sheffield
The Student Counselling Outcomes Research and Evaluation (SCORE) consortium comes out of a long-running wish in the university and colleges sector to create a shared routine outcomes database to provide evidence for the sector and to improve service delivery. The University of Sheffield managed a consortium of members from King’s College London, University of Cambridge, University, University of Oxford and City University of London, University of Plymouth.
South East Wales Mental Health Partnership (SEWMHP), Cardiff University and South East Wales NHS Trust, 2023
Evaluation report of Cardiff’s redesign and NHS partnership.
The Student Mental Health Partnerships project, Office for Students, 2022
The projects involved established partnerships between higher education providers and the NHS in Bristol, Liverpool, Greater Manchester, North London and Sheffield. This project produced the SPEQS Toolkit.
Working better together to support student mental health Insights on joined-up working between higher education and healthcare professionals to support student mental health, based on a ten-month action learning set project, Nous Group for Office for Students, 2023

Research reports on student mental health

Climate Change and Student Mental Health, Student Minds and University Partnerships Programme (UPP) Foundation, 2023
Uniting two of the most pressing challenges facing the higher education sector, the report explores questions of curriculum design, leadership, behaviour changes, the impact on specific student groups, the role of government and higher education institutions (HEIs), and more. The findings are based on a self-selected survey of students, and semi-structured student focus groups.
Improving the experiences of disabled PhD students in STEM, Disabled Students UK and Pete Quinn Consulting Ltd, 2023
A report looking at ways of improving experiences of disabled PhD students and finding that 86 per cent of respondents said that their degree had negatively affected their mental health and well-being.
The Student Mental Health Crisis, a fresh perspective, Health Action Campaign, 2022
Report on definitions of the student mental health crisis and scope of the problem, written in collaboration with research at King’s College London, Ulster and Greenwich.
Student mental health in 2023, Who is struggling and how the situation is changing, King’s College London (KCL), TASO and the Policy Institute, 2023
A report on who is struggling and how the situation is changing in the current student mental health landscape
Student wellbeing over time, analysing Student Academic Experience Survey data for undergraduates and taught postgraduates, What Works Wellbeing (WWW) and TASO, 2023
A report on student wellbeing as measured by The Student Academic Experiences Survey (SAES), conducted by AdvanceHE and the Higher Education Policy Institute (HEPI).

Research reports on youth mental health (outside of Higher Education)

Adolescent mental health: A systematic review on the effectiveness of school-based interventions, What Works for Early Intervention and Children’s Social Care, 2021
A review of the latest evidence on what works for school-based mental health interventions.
Mental and physical health, Covid Social Mobility & Opportunities (COSMO) study, Erica Holt-White, Kevin Latham, Jake Anders, Carl Cullinane, Rebecca Montacute, Xin Shao and James Yarde, 2023
Findings from a large scale study conducted throughout the course of the pandemic that has found that quarter of young people have sought some form of mental health support in the last 12 months, yet many are struggling to access that support. A press release is also available.

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