Student Counsellors from both Higher and Further Education meet in Edinburgh at the end of this month after a year that has been both exhilarating and exacting. The conference - where speakers include leading psychotherapist Susie Orbach - will mark the end of a critical year for student counselling. On the one hand counsellors will be able to look back on a year in which the crucial importance of student counselling has been widely acknowledged. However they meet against the backdrop of increasing demands upon their skills and increasing pressure upon their funding.
The importance of counselling as a vital support for students has long been recognised within universities and colleges. The public spotlight has now been directed more closely upon this by the publication of several recent reports. A report by the influential UK Universities group on Student Mental Health eleven months ago underlined the vital importance of proper professional support for students as access to tertiary education widens. In many universities student counselling service have led the move to implement its recommendations. Two NHS reports have underlined the clear evidential support for the effectiveness of counselling in alleviating mental distress. In addition the Association of University and College Counsellors (AUCC) have launched a rigorous service accreditation scheme with the intention of establishing a benchmark against which universities and colleges can measure the effectiveness of their student counselling services.
However, the increasing demand to demonstrate a high standard of fairness and professionalism - enshrined in recent primary legislation concerning human rights, disability discrimination and data protection - increases the demands on counsellor's expertise. Nigel Humphrys, Chair of the Heads of University Counselling Services and a conference workshop leader notes that "While the increased expectation on Counselling Services to be involved in quality assessments, staff training and consultations throughout their institutions is very welcome, it can also lead to a more fractured and pressured work situation." Also the recognised need for counselling throughout the young population is leading to a greater demand on Student Counselling Services. Robin Dollery of AUCC notes "Parents may now phone up to check the availability of counselling services before the UCAS form is filled in." Yet these increasing demands are not met by increased funding as universities and colleges generally experience a squeeze on all their income streams. Indeed the AUCC have observed that counsellor student ratios are worsening - especially in New Universities - at the very time that additional support needs were being created by new government initiatives.
The Conference highlights the importance of taking responsibility for the psychological and emotional aspects of the learning environment. The opening speaker, Susie Orbach speaks of the need "to create an emotionally literate culture, where the facility to handle the complexities of emotional life is as widespread as the capacity to read, write and do arithmetic." During the week of the conference, the focus will particularly be upon the relationship between the world of emotion and counselling and the broader institution. Other contributing on this subject include Professor Ernesto Spinelli of Regent's College and Sir Stewart Sutherland. Importantly, counsellors will be offered a chance to stand back for a week from the immediate pressures of their work - hopefully after a reflective week in Edinburgh participants will leave reinvigorated for what promises to be another challenging year for those supporting students.
AUCC Conference 27/3/01 to 30/3/01 Edinburgh
For further comment contact Dave Berger
The best days of their lives? A time for finding yourself, for forging friendships and relationships to last a lifetime, for taking time to make serious choices about a career and a life-path. A transition time between the dependence of childhood and the responsibilities of working life, or a time to change career and build a new identity. A time for testing your abilities and finding your level, for founding habits of balance between discipline and recreation. Student life has traditionally provided an opportunity for all of these things, in addition to the honing of skills and preparation of minds for contributions to the workforce and community. Things which play a vital part in producing well-rounded, responsible citizens, with the mental and emotional resources to sustain and perpetuate a stable community.
Alas, student life in the 21st century provides less and less of this kind of opportunity. It is increasingly a life of very high pressure and stress. Greater student numbers and pressures on universities and colleges to be 'cost effective' mean a more anonymous, isolated campus experience with pressure on all students to study subjects which lead to 'good' jobs, not subjects which interest and engage them. Unrealistic expectations for all to get high grades leave many with high levels of anxiety and poor self-esteem. A recent Mental Health Foundation study shows a general increase in mental illness amongst young people. Add to this the severe effect of greater student poverty on students' mental health and wellbeing, and we are faced with serious implications for students as individuals and for society as a whole.
An inefficient and complex student loan system, and the introduction of tuition fees, leave students substantially worse off. Student poverty is real poverty, with all the attendant stress and mental anguish of insecurity, debt and uncertainty. Studies have repeatedly shown that poverty is very closely linked with depression and that stress is a precipitant of more serious mental illness. Of course, relative poverty has always been a part of student life, but this used to be balanced with relative 'time wealth'. The move to student loans and fees leaves students in greater financial poverty and substantially poorer in time. To make ends meet, students now routinely work long hours in low-paid jobs. Their lives are spent juggling academic demands with work to pay the rent. Aspects of life vital for mental health and wellbeing - sleep, diet, exercise, recreation, and sustaining relationships - are increasingly sacrificed. Students do far less sport, citing both lack of time and poverty. Participation in voluntary work is also substantially reduced - opportunities for meaningful, esteem-building and career-relevant work replaced by shelf-stacking or the like. And in the end, missing lectures to go to work and insufficient study time seriously jeopardise that good degree, which was the original point of it all!
This harried, stressed lifestyle puts students at increased risk of substance abuse or risky eating patterns to help them cope or to provide 'quick' relaxation. Increased financial dependence on families can also greatly magnify the effect of parental pressure or other family strain, and lead to guilt at increasing the financial burden of a family who can't afford it. It is not surprising that student counselling services are increasingly in demand, and that financial stresses and depression are noticeably more prevalent amongst the issues presented by students in counselling. Counselling is often successful in preventing student drop-out, supporting achievement in the face of these pressures and enabling students to address important life issues. However, counselling services are themselves under increasing financial pressure, and are often stretched beyond their ability to respond effectively. Increased access to higher education becomes an empty achievement when it produces individuals crammed with vocational skills but depleted of the mental and emotional resources vital for sustaining a strong and stable society. Is this the outcome we want?
Denise Meyer is editor of the Association of University and College Counsellors Newsletter & Journal, and a counsellor at Royal Holloway, University of London. Email: AUCC Journal editor
© THES 2001