Blog20 August 2026
Evaluating impact: How evidence is reshaping student wellbeing interventions
Ruichen Yin and Audrey Fok, The Student Advisory Team
Student mental health and wellbeing have become some of the most talked-about issues in higher education and for good reason. Universities across the UK are investing in new initiatives to support students, but a critical question remains: how do we know if these services are making a difference?
That’s where TASO comes in. As an independent hub for the higher education sector, TASO commissions research to facilitate evidence-based, effective, and student-centred support. One key example is the TASO-funded quasi-experimental design evaluation led by Ipsos, which explores outcomes from three new wellbeing interventions being piloted within UK universities.
We spoke to Tatjana Damjanovic to understand why investing resources into evaluating these interventions is so vital. We discussed why simply ‘having’ support isn’t enough; we need to know if it actually works.
The evidence gap
Tatjana outlined the challenge of gathering robust evidence, and the importance of student voice.
- The challenge: There is currently a lack of robust evidence on ‘what works’ regarding targeted wellbeing interventions and particularly in smaller or specialist institutions such as Higher Education.
- The measurement dilemma: You cannot use the same ruler for everything. A clinical or mental health measure might be suitable for counselling services, but it’s not necessarily helpful for wellbeing services or for a drop-in art workshop.
- Student partnership: The best interventions often involve students from the very start as peer researchers to ensure student voice is embedded into these interventions and decisions, but this takes time to embed student voice meaningfully.
The challenge: Defining the problem to measure the solution
We then discussed the problem of measurement. Currently, one barrier to improving wellbeing services is the lack of robust evidence regarding effectiveness.
However, gathering this evidence isn’t straightforward. Tatjana highlighted that a major hurdle is the definition of ‘mental health crisis’ itself. Not all universities interpret this term in the same way and definitions can differ vastly between individual students. This ambiguity creates inconsistency; if we cannot agree on what constitutes a crisis, it becomes difficult to measure how effectively a specific intervention prevents one.
This leads to the tricky question of measurement. There are many forms of intervention, and each requires appropriate metrics to test. As Tatjana explained, a clinical measure such as one measuring depression symptoms is valid for people regularly attending counselling services, but perhaps not so much for drop-in art workshops.
But why even bother with collecting this data? The critical role of robust evidence is to inform higher education institutions on how to allocate limited resources wisely. It ensures universities promote services that genuinely help students and enable them to make more informed decisions to ensure students get access to the best support appropriate for their needs at the time.
Moving beyond ‘one size fits all’
We moved on to the topic of what works, and how this can differ depending on context, student population and available resources. TASO’s mission is to close the equality gap in higher education by building evidence on what works and by driving the use of evidence-informed practice. This includes looking at the evidence on ensuring all students have equal opportunities in accessing wellbeing support.
But mental health support is not ‘one size fits all’. Promoting mentally healthy campuses is not just about having access to therapy and students’ needs are rapidly changing. For instance, some students might find a wellbeing toolkit helpful that they can use when they need it, whilst others might prefer a peer-support session embedded into the curriculum to enable them to normalise their experiences.
For students, this means services are increasingly encouraged to be designed around their needs and involve them in the conversations surrounding their support rather than assuming what they need. TASO equips universities with the tools they need to improve these practices.
“We can give the higher education sector an example of how to evaluate [interventions] and also how to implement them,” Tatjana noted, adding: “We do a lot of training events that encourage managers to not only plan an evaluation, but also to use our toolkit and evidence.”
Students as partners in design
A significant shift in the sector is the role of the student voice. Students aren’t just participants in evaluations and we are also increasingly becoming partners in shaping wellbeing services.
While involving students meaningfully can be logistically difficult due to barriers such as timetabling, Tatjana emphasised how vital it is. She noted some good practice – examples where students were involved right from the start in designing an intervention, or even trained as peer researchers to help evaluate the process.
At TASO, student voices also influence projects. For instance, student advisors from Canterbury Christ Church University, University of East Anglia and University of Exeter – like us – have been providing insights in a project evaluating three new wellbeing interventions.
We also have a dedicated and independent Student Advisory Group supporting Ipsos’s evaluation and led by Dr Emma Broglia at the University of Sheffield. Tatjana is keen for students to be involved further and noted that “…if students are interested, and if students know what we’re doing, then we’re really keen to work with them.”
A whole-university approach
Looking ahead, there are growing conversations about the ‘whole-university approach’ to student mental health wellbeing. This perspective recognises that student wellbeing is not solely the responsibility of the counselling centre; it is shaped by every part of university life from accommodation to academic support.
Tatjana highlighted the need to evaluate existing standard services within universities as well as support provided through external partnerships like working with the NHS. Evidence on this helps institutions make informed decisions about the best possible practices.
Shaping evaluation
The message from TASO is clear; improving student mental health in higher education requires robust evaluations, better implementation, and genuine student involvement. For students, this means our voice matters. By sharing experiences and engaging with evaluations, we help shape services that meet real needs. With the emphasis on whole-university approaches, there is hope that wellbeing will no longer be seen as an add-on, but as an integral part of university life.
It’s exciting to see universities investing in and testing new ways to give student wellbeing the attention it deserves. We hope the findings from this evaluation help shape an even more supportive future for students across the UK.
Related resources
To explore the findings and related topics from this project in more detail, check out our other outputs below.
Podcast Series
Listen to our two-part discussion on the evaluation findings and their alignment with the Mental Health Charter:
The Student Advisory Team blog post
Read the group blog post from our student advisors who supported the evaluation to learn about our reflections on the interventions and preliminary findings.