Abstract
Student counselling services are at the forefront of providing mental health support to Irish Higher Education students. Since 1996, the Psychological Counsellors in Higher Education in Ireland (PCHEI) association, through their annual survey collection, has collected aggregate data for the sector. However, to identify national trends and effective interventions, a standardised non-aggregate sectoral approach to data collection is required. The Higher Education Authority funded project, 3SET, builds on the PCHEI survey through the development of a national database. In this paper, we outline the steps followed in developing the database, identify the parties involved at each stage and contrast the approach taken to the development of similar databases. Important factors shaping the development have been the autonomy of counselling services, compliance with General Data Protection Regulation, and the involvement of practitioners. This is an ongoing project with the long-term sustainability of the database being a primary objective.
Highlights
Most Higher Education (HE) students in Ireland are between 18 and 24 years old
As primary providers of embedded mental health support to students, Psychological Counsellors in Higher Education in Ireland (PCHEI) saw the importance of gathering aggregate data on how and why students use student counselling services (SCSs)
A scoping literature review was performed in the areas of data collection in SCSs, the provision of mental health support at HE, and the mental health of young adults
Summary
Most Higher Education (HE) students in Ireland are between 18 and 24 years old. This is the time in a person’s life when they are most likely to develop a mental health disorder (Kessler et al, 2007; Cuijpers et al, 2019), which can affect them well beyond these young adult years (Erskine et al, 2015). Hill et al (2020) call for an evidence-based approach to student mental health in Irish HEIs. there is a call for the collection of standardised data from HE SCSs (Barkham et al, 2019; Hughes & Spanner, 2019; Broglia et al, 2021).
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