An independent evaluation of the Office for Students’ (OfS's) Mental Health Funding Competition found that the programme supported 3,241 students and trained 316 staff to provide targeted mental health support for students.
With investment from the Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) and the Department for Education (DfE), the OfS awarded more than £3 million in funding through the Mental Health Funding Competition (MHFC) to identify effective practice for targeted student mental health support.
The fund supported 18 projects led by universities and colleges, to pilot innovative approaches to supporting the mental health of particular groups of students who may be at greater risk of poor mental health or who may face barriers to accessing support. Approaches included peer-to-peer mentoring, awareness raising campaigns, connecting with NHS services, and digital solutions such as virtual reality experiences.
This final independent programme-level evaluation report produced by Wavehill explores how the MHFC addressed barriers to mental health support among target groups, what impact the programme has had, how these approaches could be adopted by other universities and colleges, and how they might be sustained.
