The November print edition of Professional Security Magazine ahead of a major feature on UK campus security has a page on how universities are looking after freshers – those students, typically aged 18, starting their university courses this month.
As featured numerous times in Professional Security, security departments at universities have taken on a pronounced welfare and pastoral role in recent years, besides continuing to protect life and property.
Meanwhile Universities UK (UUK), with PAPYRUS Prevention of Young Suicide, has published recommendations calling on universities to be more proactive in preventing student suicides. With the aim of ‘suicide-safer universities’, the new guidance sets out how and when universities should involve families, carers and trusted others when there are serious concerns about the safety or mental health of a student. Consistent practice is proposed for the sector.
Prof Steve West, President of Universities UK and Vice-Chancellor of UWE (University of the West of England) Bristol, said: “There is nothing more devastating for a university community than a student death by suicide. As a sector, we need to do everything we can to reduce the risk of suicide and serious self-harm. Universities are committed to putting students who may be in difficulty at the centre of decisions about their care – including who they want involved. But this commitment must be balanced with a duty to protect a student when there are serious concerns about their safety and welfare.
“Universities can help save lives when they adopt a proactive response to suicide prevention, and an important part of that proactive response is making proportionate, risk-based decisions around involving trusted contacts.”
For the document in full visit the UUK website. It explicitly includes security departments among those who ought to be involved in suicide prevention work. The immediate aftermath of a suspected suicide can be stressful, confusing and highly emotive, the document points out; ‘bereavement support’ may be required for security and cleaning staff and others who knew the person.
In the United States, the Biden-Harris Administration has announced efforts to head off scams as Joe Biden brings in student debt relief. The White House says that it will lead an all-of-government scam prevention effort, coordinating across the federal Department of Education (ED), the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) and Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB), ED’s Office of Inspector General (OIG), United States banking regulators, licensing bodies, student loan ombudsmen, Secretaries of State, and state attorneys general.
