Student Mental Health Essentials (Faculties and Departments)

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Student Mental Health Essentials offers a focused, practical guide to responding to student mental health in your role as an academic or professional services staff member at Cambridge.

The session is led by trained practitioners from the University’s Student Wellbeing Service and offers space to discuss key aspects of supporting student mental health, including:

• Contributing factors to student mental health difficulties;
• Key principles related to confidentiality and information-sharing;
• Boundary-setting and working within the limits of our roles;
• Compassionate communication principles;
• Effective signposting to services, including in more urgent scenarios.

Training content and scenarios have been developed and continuously improved with colleagues from Schools, Faculties and Departments to ensure its relevance. Each session includes practical resources and information on services which will be circulated alongside the session slides for reference.

Target audiences include, but are not limited to Academic Faculty/Department roles such as:

• Academic Teaching and Research Staff
• Professional, Administrative or Support Staff (including Library Staff)
• Postgraduate Research Supervisors
• Directors of Education and/or Heads of Department

Trainees must be members of staff and attached to an Academic Faculty or Department at the University.

Please note that the session will only be confirmed once at least 8 participants make a booking. Otherwise, the training will be rescheduled.

Number of sessions: 1

• To consolidate or enhance your up-to-date knowledge of College, University services and external mental health provisions.
• To offer practical guidance on responding to student mental health, consistent with the Collegiate University's Stepped Care approach.
• To improve or consolidate your confidence about the scope and boundaries of our various responsibilities on student mental health.
• To create opportunities to discuss relevant case studies and to reflect on shared best practice.

Session structure:

• Introduction to Student Mental Health at Cambridge
• Principles of Good Practice
• Scenario discussions
• Wrap-up and final questions

Content note:

Please note that the training includes topics which may be personally impactful. The session includes case studies which mention mental health challenges and guidance related to asking about suicide. The session approaches these topics sensitively and in line with best practice standards, and trainers will not ask participants to share any personal experiences. The trainer will remind participants of this content note during the session, and participants will be welcome to take a comfort break if helpful at any stage of the session.

Feedback and Evaluation:

Evaluation of a Student Mental Health Essentials pilot in 2023/24 demonstrated from 122 feedback forms that:

• 93% of staff participants felt the training content was relevant for their role and work with students at Cambridge;
• 94% of participants felt the training had enhanced or consolidated their confidence in responding to student mental health in their roles;
• 99% of participants felt our trainers delivered the session capably and clearly.

What staff said:

• “We were blessed with a great trainer and presenter for this crucial topic. Brilliant energy, respectful and informative.”
• “Well delivered, relevant & useful session highlighting key points, indicators and avenues down which to seek help & referral.”
• “The Mental Health Essentials pilot was very well received by academics and ‘student-facing’ professional support staff who attended, all of whom appreciated the thoughtfully presented and information rich content.”

Continuous improvement:

Our training has integrated the valued constructive feedback gained through evaluation. This has led to direct changes including:

• More time for scenario discussions;
• More concise delivery of the introductory contextual background;
• Clearer examples of language staff can use to ask about mental health concerns.