New funding from the Office for Students for universities to innovate and collaborate to improve student mental health outcomes

Today the Office for Students (OfS) has announced the “OfS Challenge Competition: Achieving a step change in mental health outcomes for all students”. The Office for Students, through this new competition, is inviting higher education providers to deliver new and innovative collaborative approaches to improving mental health outcomes for students.

We are delighted to see that the OfS is championing the importance of student mental health, through supporting universities to work in partnership with other Higher Education Institutions and other organisations including  education providers such as schools and colleges, health agencies, third sector organisations, and other stakeholders to innovate in this area.  

With around £6m of funding, the competition aims to generate new approaches which can be used across higher education. Proposals could support:

• A focus on transitions for all types of students, whether from school or college to higher education, or from there into postgraduate study or employment
• Early intervention by providing new forms of mental health awareness training to staff and students or using data to improve or enhance interventions
• A step change in support - for example developing an integrated approach between university or college-level support services and those of local primary care and mental health services, or addressing barriers to accessing support across services and sectors.

Higher Education providers are invited to express their interest by the 7th of November 2018. 

You can read more about the OfS Challenge Competition on their website. 

If you want to know more about our work at Student Minds across these objectives contact policy@studentminds.org.uk