A father whose undergraduate son killed himself after he fell behind with his studies has urged universities to take better care of students who are struggling with mental health issues.
Jos Winfield, an undergraduate at Brunel University London, would have celebrated his 22nd birthday this Saturday, but on Fathers’ day this year his parents found him dead in his bedroom at the family home in Somerset.
“He was lost,” Jos’s father, Mark, said. “He got himself into a deep depression and he thought there was nowhere else to go. The university could and should have done more for him.”
As tens of thousands of 18-year-olds in England prepare to leave the family home to start new lives at university next month, Winfield urged parents to be watchful of their children. “Just keep a close eye on your kids,” he said.
“People need to know that they [universities] don’t give a monkeys. They don’t want to know. Jos is just another statistic, but something needs to be done. This has destroyed us. I don’t know how many parents have to go through this.”
Jos grew up in Ashtead, Surrey. He was quiet, did well at school, especially at maths, and had no history of mental health issues. The first his parents knew he had applied to Brunel to study aerospace engineering was when the student finance papers came through. “I was proud of him,” said his father. “He’d done it all on his own.”
