The movement #ForThe100 has demanded universities to offer greater support for their students. According to Randstad almost 7 in 10 students have either been diagnosed with a long-term or short term mental health condition, and for others they think they have a condition but it has not been diagnosed.
One Leeds Beckett University student, Taylor Sullivan, had to be held back a year after she was suffering with depression, anxiety and borderline personality disorder “I just felt like I had no help from the university, I went to one session, and they tried to speak to me but I already had friends I could do that with. I needed therapy but I felt like I was just pushed aside and sent elsewhere. I ended up having to stay back a year because I got no help”.
The petition says “A duty of care already exists for staff, and for students under the age of 18 in higher education. There should be parity in duty of care for all members of the higher education community.”
“This is not a petition for ‘in loco parentis’ or for duplication of the NHS. We only seek parity and legislative clarity on duty of care for all students.”
Leeds Beckett Student Union Research and Analyst, Phillip Buck, said “We will run research projects sometimes to get a sense of how things are coming along. One of the things we run each year is the big student survey and some of the questions in that is to do with mental wellbeing. We make sure we ask students specifically whether there are any barriers to their mental health or wellbeing and what more can we do.”
The petition is set to be discussed in Parliament 5 June of this year.
