University mental health policy template
A practical toolkit to help universities create a strategy to improve the mental health of staff and students.
A practical toolkit to help universities create a strategy to improve the mental health of staff and students.
This digital pack will help you to create a trustworthy mental health strategy based on sound clinical evidence. It will enable you to look at a whole-university approach to wellbeing, encouraging all staff and students to get involved.
This download is a ZIP file containing two PDFs: the toolkit and the template to enable you to customise your mental health policy.
CREATE University Mental Health Toolkit
Whatever your role in the university, you may notice students that you are familiar with acting differently from normal. Perhaps you may notice changes in appearance or behaviour which concern you.
The toolkit was written in partnership with experienced Charlie Waller Trainers and students, and peer reviewed by members of the Association of Managers of Student Services in Higher Education (AMOSSHE), the British Association of Counselling and Psychotherapy (BACP), the Student Mental Health Research Network (SMaRteN), Universities UK and UCAS. It provides practical, proven and accessible guidance to help you CREATE an effective evidence-based university mental health strategy and associated policies through:
Coproduction,
Risk assessment,
Evaluation,
Accessibility,
Togetherness, and
Embeddedness
These principles can help to ensure that the strategy is aligned to the needs, experiences, and expertise of diverse students, staff, and stakeholders in order to improve outcomes in practice.
A Whole-University Strategy
More and more universities are looking to (re)design effective evidence based policies to promote mental health as part of a whole university strategy consistent with the University Mental Health Charter.
Creating a Whole University Strategy That Works
This toolkit contains content to help a range of university staff to:
- Understand the principles and processes for creating a mental health strategy as part of a whole university approach.
- Find and evaluate the research evidence for different mental health strategies and initiatives available to your university, aligned with the University Mental Health Charter Principles of Good Practice if appropriate.
- Structure and write a mental health strategy suitable for your institutional context and develop supporting policies
- Plan effective and coordinated implementation of your mental health strategy.
- Develop skills and techniques to effectively coproduce a mental health strategy at your university.
- Identify ways that the Charlie Waller Trust can provide ongoing and bespoke support to achieve your university’s mental health strategy aspirations.
- Implement effective and theory-based evaluation informed by complexity theory to develop and demonstrate a whole university strategy that works at your institution.
Additional free bespoke consultation to help you apply the toolkit at your university is available from us. Find out more or make an enquiry.