Current projects
We use both quantitative and qualitative methods to inform service development. This page provides an outline of our current projects.
Developing a Research and Training Clinic to enhance mental health outcomes for students
This is a joint initiative between the University Counselling Service, the Clinical Psychology Unit and the Department of Psychology.
The clinic aims to design, deliver, and evaluate evidence-based interventions that contribute to improved mental health and academic outcomes for students.
Its specific goals include:
Offering clinical placements for DClinPsy students
Offering research placements for Psychology undergraduate and MSc students
Testing new interventions to improve student mental health outcomes
This is an ongoing commitment developed from our SPEQS project.
Developing partnerships between University and NHS mental health services
This project involved eight universities across five regions in England, as well as Student Minds, Universities UK, and NHS England.
The project involved the development of a toolkit, named Student Services Partnerships Evaluation and Quality Standards (SPEQS), as part of a wider Office for Students funded project led by the University of the West of England.
The SPEQS toolkit was jointly developed by a team of researchers and practitioners across TUoS and University College London. It involved student coproduction, research and consultation to achieve the following aims:
Characterise the current state of partnerships between University and NHS services
Identify factors and underline activities that contribute to successful partnerships
This is a practical toolkit for service managers and practitioners striving to develop partnerships to respond to diverse student mental health needs.
Download the SPEQS toolkit (PDF, 12MB)
For information on the wider project, visit:
Project outputs
In this podcast, Dr Emma Broglia discusses the outcomes of the SPEQS project.
This project has also led to a commitment to develop a Research and Training Clinic to enhance our student support services.
Improving the quality of data collected in University counselling services
The Student Counselling Outcomes Research and Evaluation (SCORE) consortium comes out of a long-running wish in Higher Education to create a database of student outcomes following therapy. The aim is to provide evidence for the sector and to improve service delivery.
Our research activities so far have included:
running workshops for staff
building a multi-university database from in-house student counselling services
conducting online consultations with staff to identify challenges to collecting data
This research is jointly funded by the British Association for Counselling and Psychotherapy (BACP) and the United Kingdom Council for Psychotherapy (UKCP).
This is an ongoing project and we’re continuing to invite new members. For more information the SCORE research page.
Project outputs
Visit the external links below for more information on the project’s aims and our findings:
Measuring student wellbeing before, during and after University
We’re involved in the student mental health research network, SMaRteN, to develop a dataset that measures student mental health before, during and after University.
Part of this activity involves a SMaRteN-funded project, led by the University of York, that aims to bring together all of the Universities involved in creating these longitudinal datasets. This includes offering free advice on setting up these projects and templates for getting started.
At TUoS, we’re developing our own longitudinal dataset to better understand the needs of our students and to contribute to these wider projects.
Project outputs
In this blog, Paul Heron discusses the aims of the project at the University of York.
Related information