COLLEGE principals are urging the Scottish Government to save 80 mental health counselling jobs that are at risk of a possible redundancy.
The roles have been funded since 2018 and have allowed students vital access to counselling at colleges and universities.
The service was put in place even before the Covid-19 pandemic and the cost-of-living crisis as mental health issues were recognised as having a huge impact on student wellbeing.
The colleges are now asking the Government to step in and save the service, with 21 college principals having written to the Scottish Government for help.
A subscription to The Herald gives full access to our Health Correspondent's exclusive news and analysis. Only £2 for 2 months.
👉 Click here to get this offer 👈
Funding for the service is only available until July.
Jon Vincent, principal of Glasgow Clyde College and mental health lead for the college sector, said the risk of potential redundancy for highly skilled counsellors is “very concerning”.
He said: “Over the past two years, myself and other college leaders have repeatedly asked the Scottish Government to support the future of this vital service, but funding is only in place until the summer.
“We have recruited counsellors to help save lives on campus, give very vulnerable students support, and be our experts in-house to deal with mental health issues.
“As employers we don’t have the money to carry on the service from our own budgets and we need the scheme to receive ongoing funding separately as it has done for the past four years.
“We also need to give our employees some certainty about whether they are able to stay on.
“Given the worrying number of unwell students counselling helps each year, it seems completely counter intuitive to stop the scheme.
“We are also keeping demand away from the NHS which is itself struggling to cope with asks for mental health appointments.
“We have now asked the Scottish Government to be clear about whether they are going to continue funding the programme - we need to have some clarity on behalf of our students and staff.”
READ MORE: Scots universities mental health absences soar 40 per cent
In November 2022, the Mental Health Foundation published research which unveiled the scale of mental health issues for college students in Scotland.
The Thriving Learners study found that more than half of students surveyed (54 per cent) reported having moderate, moderately severe, or severe symptoms of depression. More than half (55%) said they had concealed a mental health problem due to fear of stigmatisation.
Funding of £20 million for counsellors to be based in colleges and universities was launched in 2018 by First Minister Nicola Sturgeon, but only £14.5m has been spent.
READ MORE: Half of Scots worry for mental heath in cost of living
Allie Scott, co-chair of the College Counselling Network Scotland, said early intervention has helped to reduce demand on the NHS.
She said: “We’re not a replacement for the specialised care the NHS provides but we can be the difference between a student completing their course and finding a route out of despair or those who go on to make more troubling decisions which alter their life outcomes, sometimes forever.
“The lack of commitment to continued funding is extremely worrying.
"If the service isn’t funded for the future, and the existing counselling workforce move on to other opportunities, it will be very difficult to reconstruct down the line if funding ever did become available.”
READ MORE: ONe in four top psychiatric roles not permanently filled
A Scottish Government spokesman said: “Despite a very challenging fiscal environment, we have confirmed a further £2 million in this academic year to March 2023, and we are committed to additional funding to cover the entirety of the current Academic Year.
"No decision has been taken with regard to funding beyond the end of the current academic year.
“The Scottish Government will also deliver a Student Mental Health Plan in Spring 2023.
"This will provide a framework for student mental health support in universities and colleges, which will be linked to our wider Mental Health and Wellbeing Strategy.”
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules here