In 2019 the Office for Students (OfS) launched the Mental Health Challenge Competition programme. This programme supplied funding to 10 higher education providers to improve support for student mental health, with a focus on student transitions, early intervention and support.
Over the last three years Wavehill have been conducting an independent evaluation of the Mental Health Challenge Competition on behalf of the Office for Students. We are pleased to announce that the final evaluation outputs are now available. This includes a number of key resources for institutions, practitioners and those working within the mental health sector and includes:
The final Mental Health Challenge Competition Evaluation Report looks at the extent to which the Mental Health Challenge Competition met its aims. It also provides advice on challenges as well as enabling factors that higher education providers may find useful to consider when developing innovative student mental health initiatives.
An executive summary of the Mental Health Challenge Competition Evaluation Report.
Co-creating mental health initiatives with students paper. This explores lessons learned in relation to co-creating mental health initiatives with students.
What Works in Supporting Student Mental Health paper. This paper is for practitioners and higher education professionals. To assist higher education institutions in shaping their own delivery it provides greater detail on each of the funded projects, including success factors as well as the potential scalability of each project.
There are additional resources and case studies from higher education institutions across England. To find out more about Wavehill's earlier work on the Mental Health Challenge Competition programme and our evaluation work please see our recent blog.
For more information on any aspect of this evaluation work this please contact Chloe Maughan and Simon Tanner.