Today, the Office for Students (OfS) launches an insight brief exploring the outcomes and needs of students who may face additional barriers to accessing mental health support. This includes analysis of their access and participation dataset. A previous analysis of this data prompted the creation of the Mental Health Funding Competition, which Wavehill is in the process of evaluating.
Today's insight brief includes reference to our paper on co-creating intersectional student mental health initiatives in November 2022, which was an important contribution to effective practice for involving specific student groups in co-creation.
OfS has commissioned Wavehill to evaluate the impact of the Mental Health Funding Competition at a programme level, and to support successful bidders in the evaluation of their impact at project level. With investment from the Department of Health and Social Care and the Department for Education, the OfS have awarded more than £3 million in funding to identify innovative and collaborative approaches to targeted support for student mental health. Wavehill will have a role in dissemination of learning particularly sharing effective practice in evaluation between projects.
Our final evaluation report is due in Spring 2024.