Moving the Dial: Reframing Student Support

Spiralling living costs, a mental health crisis, the ongoing shadow of Covid: the challenges of student life have never been greater. But 60% of students are unaware of the full scope of services offered to them at their college or university and all the research suggests that many students are simply not accessing support services.

What’s Stopping Students from Accessing Support?

One of the biggest barriers is confidence. Students tell us repeatedly that asking for support is difficult to do. For underrepresented students in particular notions of the “ideal” student  can get in the way of asking for help or support: the belief that they should be able to cope, be independent, of feeling self-conscious or not wanting to be a nuisance. “I was afraid to access support. There is that stigma of ‘you need to be in trouble to need support.’”

Many students get a strong message from secondary schools that they will have to be much more independent learners when they got to university. This, in turn, adversely affects their behaviour around seeking support – whether for fear of not being sufficiently independent or for the assumption that there is no support at university because you’re just supposed to be independent.

For others there is the sense that ‘help’ is only for emergencies, that otherwise it feels like cheating, a sign of weakness or failure. There is certainly a stigma associated with reaching out for support around wellbeing and mental health for some international students – that sense that they would be judged as coming up short by their families and the communities which, in many cases, are funding their university experience.

Others are deterred by past experiences of when asking for help had not gone well, be it their school, their family or the public services. For some the university is simply another big institution like the ones that have let them down in the past: the care system, social services, the Home Office.

And, while support has been described as one of the four pillars of belonging at university, in many instances provision remains predicated on a deficit model: viewing students (or their support needs) as a problem that needs fixing. This compounds the notion of there being something wrong, something missing, something lacking with the student themselves – that they, the students, are the problem that needs fixing. Indeed, the very act of having to actively go out and FIND support, further entrenches already deeply engrained feelings of unbelonging, ‘otherness’ or ‘imposter syndrome’.

We Need to Re-Frame Support Services

Clearly, then, if we are serious about moving the dial we need a change in mindset about support – for students, for staff and for institutions.

We might start by re-framing for students the way we position support. Instead of being a lifeline in a crisis it is more about gathering what you need to be a success. We wouldn’t expect an elite athlete to manage without a coach, nutritionist or psychologist. The same principle applies to students. In this way it becomes a positive resource for a student to build around themself, not a sign of weakness that they reach for when there is nowhere else to turn. In the words of one student, “it’s a different way of thinking about support, about how people usually don’t ask for support until they need help. So now I’ve accessed support; I’ve looked at academic support; I’ve joined student societies. I’ve reached out.” 

And it’s about broadening the definition of what it means to get support: it is the informal as well as the formal. Students describe the power of “talking through your problems – about academic work, about all the things going on outside uni. It stops me from getting overwhelmed by the stresses of life,” about “utilising my surrounding environment for support … being more confident in asking for support at an earlier stage.”

This reframing of the conversation creates a sense of self-efficacy that empowers students to inform what their own support looks like. Students are more likely to ask for help and support. As another student told us, “I’ve reframed needing support as a positive action and put in place actions that will move me towards my goals. So, for example, I’ve contacted well-being services.”

Case study: Making Waves, Your Success

Solent University and Grit have been working together for two years to start reframing these conversations about help and support with students and staff. As part of this work, in February 2024 we will be running, the ‘Making Waves, Your Success’ programme, a two-day leadership programme specifically supporting students of colour in developing confidence, self-efficacy, and a sense of belonging.

Alongside the Grit programme, the University is enhancing its proactive support model –the Therapy & Mental Health Team now deliver a series of workshops throughout term for students at all levels focused on building resilience and accessing support throughout their studies.

As well as traditional blocks of counselling, the University has moved to include a Single Session Therapy model to ensure students get timely and relevant support. Students are seen within 5 working days of making the initial contact and there is no longer any need to operate a waiting list. Counsellors work closely with Mental Health Advisors to enable effective triaging and ensure the support is tailored to the student's needs.

Helping Students to See the Value of Support Services: A Relationship-Focused Model

But in all of this there is the question of prioritisation. Students lead complex lives. More than 70% are struggling with decisions around attending scheduled teaching: on any given day do I prioritise my studies over earning money, saving money by not traveling, my caring responsibilities? Students make decisions on what feels right, within the context of what is going on around them.  At a particular point in time, going to work may be more valuable than going to a lecture or accessing support.

So students need to understand the value of support. And this takes reflection: what do I want out of my education journey; what support do I need to achieve it; what’s getting in the way? A student describes “Being more active in my pursuit of long term goals and so being more active in pursuing support services.” Getting support then becomes an active choice rather than a flailing response.

Support is at its most effective when provision is based on relationship rather than process. In many institutions the focus is on the delivery of information and knowledge rather than a relationship-focused model. We know that when staff build strong relationships with students, they are better able to empower students to seek support before crises occur.

We should be thinking about positioning reflection and access to support in the everyday experiences of students, countering the sense of support as an extra, something out of the ordinary, something to be sought out. Personal tutoring, empowered by coaching tools, is a huge opportunity for this relationship-focused model to be effective. A Personal Tutor describes how it works with one student: “It’s not about academic support (there is no doubting their abilities); it’s about providing them with a sense of connection at a stage in their studies when they are mostly working on their own. It’s about helping them manage their anxieties, focusing on what they have already achieved and the small steps necessary to succeed. So we meet once a month, just to see how things are. Together we reframe the narrative to one of success.”

Putting Students at the Centre

None of this happens in a vacuum. Moving the dial is also about changing the institutional mindset away from the deficit model. Instead, when we start from the premise that students already have everything they need, the focus is then on empowering them to shape and inform what support looks like, rather than on trying to come up with ‘answers’ and ‘solutions’ on their behalf from our own (often limited and limiting) perspective.

We need to move to a student-centred approach where support is integrated and taken on – not as a fix – but as a way to begin changing the culture, to begin building relationships with students that have us listen to and appreciate their unique perspective and begin shaping support and support services anew with them.

About the authors

Tania Struetzel is Head of Student Success at Solent University. @TStruetzel | @SolentUni | LinkedIn

Jon Down is the Director of Development at Grit Breakthrough Programmes. Grit delivers intensive personal development and coaching programmes in universities across the UK. @grit_2017 | LinkedIn

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