UEA students set up the Not Enough campaign over student support services

Following four suicides in ten months at the University of East Anglia, a group of students have decided to take action through a petition, protests and are now launching a Facebook campaign.

 

The Not Enough campaign is a place for students to talk to one another and discuss issues surrounding the mental health services on campus.

 

Adam Harvey, set up a petition to directly address the Vice Chancellor, which currently has over 7,700 signatures. He told Heart  he wants to make sure that the university provides services that can benefit everyone:

 

"We've had several deaths this year, tragic deaths and they've affected the community as a whole. Whilst the Vice Chancellor might have promised additional funding I think it's still required for us to do additional campaigning.

 

We want meaningful reform of the student support services, we want accountability and transparency when it comes to the support services and how the money is being used."

 

The university is putting an additional £250,000 into student support services immediately.

 

Vice Chancellor Professor David Richardson told Heart:

 

"At UEA we have recognised the significant increase in demand in wellbeing and mental health services and have been planning for additional investment.
 
We take our responsibilities very seriously. We have fast-tracked additional funding into our services both for the remainder of this financial year and the budgets for future years.

 

We will be using this money to improve access to services, recruiting specially trained wellbeing staff to offer more support and interventions to students.
 
We are improving our services. We are investing more. But it's not just about money. We will need a whole community response on these issues and I will be leading a VC Taskforce on mental health and well-being at UEA. We do need to look out for each other and support each other through this."

 

The petition and campaign has come following complaints that there are too few counsellors and long waiting times for appointments.