Let students go home to see their families, universities are urged

UNIVERSITIES are being called on to allow students to go home and see their families amid fears that mental health services are becoming overwhelmed.

It comes as the National Union of Students calls for urgent action over student well-being amid recent suicides.

Students have been told their “household” is the students with whom they live, so in places on high or very high alert, they cannot go home during term because it counts as mixing indoors with another household.

Student welfare officers are concerned at the growing demand for mental health services, with freshers in particular struggling to settle in. At

Manchester, where more than 4,000 students are self-isolating, officials are under pressure to allow them home. “The support systems are overreached, there are too many people,” a source said. “If you can reduce the pressure, let students leave after self-isolation.”

The NUS echoed calls for students to go home, saying it was “increasingly difficult” to meet their needs at this time.

Sara Khan, an NUS equality officer, said: “As well as investment in mental health services, we also need to see more support for students self-isolating and flexibility shown by universities, including allowing them to travel to see family provided it is safe to do so.”

America Pardo-gomez, a well-being officer at Manchester Metropolitan University, said services were “overstretched”, adding: “A lot more students are isolated and it comes from them being freshers and not knowing people, then the added stress of Covid.”

A spokesman for the university said: “We have increased our investment in these areas and extended operating hours to provide support.”

Last month, Scottish ministers backtracked over a ban on students returni ng home by saying while l egal restrictions remained in force, those who travelled home for “well-being” reasons would not be punished, as this would be seen as a “reasonable excuse”.

Universities UK, representing viceChancellors, said they understood it was a “tough time” for students but were doing everything to ensure students could access the support they needed.