UMO White Paper
UMO’s mission is to ensure that those students are fully supported throughout their time at university and that barriers to successful academic outcomes are minimised so each student fulfils their potential. Our White Paper highlights the importance of specialist mental health mentoring in improving outcomes for university students.
Mental Health AT University
Figures released by the Higher Education Statistics Agency (HESA) show that 26,000 students in England who began studying for their first degree in 2015 did not make it beyond the first year.
The mental health and wellbeing of students in higher education has always been of great concern, and figures such as the above help us to understand why intervention, and personalised support for students is so game-changing. Such is the nature of UMO’s Specialist Mental Health Mentoring services
The Role Of Specialist Mentoring
The aim for UMO mentors is to make sure their sessions align with the student’s busy academic schedule, and create a safe space for meaningful dialogue and connection between the mentor and mentee. They will work alongside the student, taking into account their current academic performance, style of learning, environment, and the state of their mental health and wellbeing, with the aim of helping the student to implement effective strategies and coping mechanisms to use in their day-to-day lives.
At the end of mentoring, students will be able to step confidently into the next stages of their lives with a whole new outlook, and authority over their mental health and wellbeing.
The Student Perspective
The student perspective is vital to the success and development of UMO’s services, and as such, surveys were conducted by UMO investigating the benefit of their Specialist Mental Health Mentoring between 2011 and 2019. A total of 280 responses (17.5%) were received from a total of 1600+ students receiving mentoring during that period.
Not only did these surveys demonstrate an unequivocal benefit to student grades, and a boost to attendance, but students reported feeling more confident in their own abilities post-mentoring, and indicated that they had been successful in learning and implementing new strategies to combat issues with their mental health and wellbeing.