Charter Award
The University Mental Health Charter Award is a voluntary accreditation scheme for Programme Members. It brings universities and Assessment Teams together to:
University Assessment
Assess the University’s progress against the Principles of Good Practice within the University Mental Health Charter
Strength & Development
Understand areas of strength and development to inform ongoing improvement in the university and across the sector
Recognition
Recognise those universities that demonstrate excellent approaches to student and staff mental health.
How does it work?
Self Assessment
The university provides a written self assessment, student-led report and supporting evidence that demonstrates the effectiveness of their approach to fulfilling the Principles of Good Practice across all 18 themes in the Framework.
Peer Assessment
The university’s submission is evaluated by a team of peer assessors. Each Assessment Team contains a mixture of experience, including HE professionals, learning and teaching experts, clinicians and student assessors.
Onsite Visit
Assessment Team’s conduct a site visit over two days to better understand the university’s approach and specific context. During this time assessors meet with a cross section of staff and students to hear about their experiences.
Assessor Report
The Assessor Report gives an overall outcome alongside evaluation and outcomes for each theme of the University Mental Health Charter Framework. The Assessment Team highlight areas of work that have a positive impact on mental health and wellbeing, affirm actions that are moving towards good practice but do not have sufficient impact measures, make recommendations for further improvements, and identifies potential unmanaged risks.
Recognition
We will publicly celebrate a university once they have achieved an Award outcome that has been ratified by the independent Award Panel.
Improvement
Award holders must remain active members of the Programme, contributing to the collective learning of this community and committing to ongoing continuous improvement. Award holders must be reassessed after 5 years to maintain or improve their Award outcome.