Almost 17,500 students are currently seeing a college counsellor or accessing mental health support regularly, a Tes investigation has found.

Across 142 colleges that responded toTes, the number of staff in roles with dedicated mental health responsibilities has more than doubled in just three years, from 372 in 2016 to 914 in 2019. 

And the number of staff who have received mental health first-aid training, or some form of mental health awareness training, has increased eightfold in the same period, from 571 to 4,668.

Across the colleges that responded to Tes' Freedom of Information requests, a total of 17,481 students were accessing mental health support regularly. More than 120 of the colleges said they ran a counselling service for learners.

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Leanne Hicks, group head of student support at the Activate Learning college group, said that students were much more open and willing to speak to staff about mental health concerns. 

Mental health support in colleges

"I'm not surprised so many young people are reaching out. They're much more open now. We’re dealing with things like adverse childhood experiences, increased pressure, and there’s a big crossover between anxiety and depression, and not understanding their own emotions, and being able to deal with their emotions," she said.

Bill Webster, principal and CEO at Bolton College, said that his college had seen a "continual rise" in the range of interventions required for student mental health, adding that more students  were reporting everything from complex psychological problems to anxiety and exam stress, with social media being a contributing factor.

Richard Caulfield, the Association of Colleges' area director for the North West and mental health lead, said that the FE sector faced a greater challenge than any other part of the education system, with 16- to 18-year-olds often falling between programmes for adults and children and moving districts to attend college, often leading to interruptions in support.

He added: “We are picking up the pieces sometimes where there are cuts in the system and we are becoming one of the safe spaces for young people.”

The crisis in Camhs

Those colleges that did not offer internal support for students referred them to external providers, such as child and adolescent mental health services (Camhs). Tes’ research found that since 2016, the number of external referrals from colleges on mental health doubled, from 1,592 made in 2016 to 3,201 last year,

However, a report by the Education Policy Institute think tank published earlier this month found that one in four children and young people referred to specialist mental health services were subsequently rejected for treatment. The EPI said that it was unclear what support was available to the approximately 133,000 youngsters who were turned away, with the group including children and young people who have self-harmed, experienced abuse or have eating disorders. The report also revealed that children waited an average of two months to begin treatment in 2019. 

The long wait for a referral was the main problem for many young people, said Mr Webster. "If you've got people in crisis, they may not be suicidal but they are in crisis, it's taking a long time to get treated. And the level of intervention and volume of intervention may be limited as well.

"As the volume has increased, Camhs must be under a huge increasing pressure. I don't see an increase in hiring the people who can support this." 

Ms Hicks said that support staff at Activate focus on prevention of mental ill-health, not just reaction, and the college has a whole team of specialist staff on hand to support students. 

Students benefit from sessions on mindfulness, stress-less sessions, careers and financial advice, and information about healthy eating. Organisations like Mind and the Samaritans provide regular workshops. 

“Now because more young people are willing to open up, the fear is obviously if people don’t talk about their problems, they will get worse," said Ms Hicks. "There are fears about self-harm, suicide, are they going to drop about of college? Anyone in education cares about young people, so the staff want to support them to make sure they don’t get worse, and have the opportunity to succeed and achieve and progress. Staff want to be able to have the opportunity to provide the support."

Dedicated to student wellbeing

Ms Hicks added: “There’s a fear factor of what if someone tells me they’re going to commit suicide and I talk to them about it and make it worse. Providing them with the tools to manage those conversations and not make them worse helps them to feel empowered and know they aren’t going to do the wrong thing."

Bolton College also offers a wide range of support for students. It launched a wellbeing strategy in the autumn of 2019, and plans to have every member of staff complete mental health training by 2021. 

It is also making the most of artificial intelligence. The college has a chatbot, Ada, which originally was designed to reduce administration work for staff. However, it has become a key part of their mental health provision, too. 

If a student asks Ada a question on wellbeing matters, there are up to 60 responses that it can reply with, on everything from FGM to self-harm. At the end of the response, it will direct students to a member of staff that it can follow up any concerns with. Ada can identify key words or phrases that may suggest that a student is suffering with mental health issues – and this then triggers an alert sent to staff members identifying that student and enabling them to intervene. 

As a direct result of Ada, 32 referrals have been made: eight for bullying, 13 for depression and nine for mental health. 

Mr Webster said: "We can't be on hand 24 hour a day, person-to-person. But Ada can be available 24 hours. If you're at home on your phone, you can engage with Ada.

"For many people who are struggling who find it difficult to articulate their problem and find it hard to speak to an adult, the ability to engage and have a conversation with someone who you know is not actually real is a positive." 

Mr Caulfield said he was "exceptionally proud" of how colleges had stepped up to the plate on mental health. But he added: “It is really important that people don’t just get staff trained as a means to an end. It has to be part of a whole-college approach; that alone can’t be the answer."