Professor Barbara Dooley:

I will speak first on the co-design. I will start with the involvement of students. For anything to be successful in the area of student mental health requires working with students to see what supports they would like to see. We can provide professional services through our counselling services but we also need to understand from the students. We need to talk to them and find out what are the types of services they need. There will be some students who will struggle and will need short interventions. Then there will be other students who have more significant needs and then there will be others with psychiatric diagnosis. The Deputy asked whether we have a programme that we could universally roll out. In my view, that is probably not likely because students differ. It goes from mild to moderate to severe to very severe. What will work for one person may be very different to somebody who is presenting with a mild issue. This person may simply need a very short intervention or perhaps the support of somebody back near his or her college or school where he or she is doing his or her programme. Having a universal solution is probably not likely because each person is unique.

Raising awareness is very important and is probably best done working with students, the students' unions and USI and talking to them about co-producing something that has resonance. If students are to be reached, they need to be engaged in what one is trying to provide for them. There is no point in us being prescriptive about this. We need to ask them what do they need, when do they need it and how best can we do that.