The numbers of students who have disclosed mental health issues in recent years has risen significantly in the UK. During the last two academic years, 50% of all students, at our college, who disclosed a disability, disclosed a mental health issue,

Although there have been recent changes to the legislation and government policies to widen participation by students from minority groups, there are still many ways in which universities and institutions of higher education can improve their provision and change the ways of delivering the curriculum so that students will have better access and equal opportunities. Widening participation is part of a government agenda of social inclusion. It is about reaching disadvantaged groups, but it has had the added bonus of opening the door for progress on disability.

Based in the study support team in the London College of Communication, the largest of six colleges comprising the University of the Arts London, (the biggest specialist Art and Design educational institution in Europe and possibly the world), I have first hand knowledge of the university experience of students with mental health difficulties. Their issues range across the mental health spectrum from anxiety and social phobias to depression, eating disorders, schizophrenia and obsessive compulsive disorder. We have found a way of working that supports students with mental health issues from their initial contact at admission, retaining them even through crises and successfully completing their courses, through to their graduation.

Tinklin and Hall (1999) point out that universities provide a lot of assistance to individual students to get around barriers that should ideally be removed. We do not see disability as a fixed category (Riddell, Tinklin, and Wilson (2004)), but rather as a relationship between the individual student and the contemporary requirements of society in general and the university in particular. Thus we see disability as socially constructed. Social models focus on the need for society to remove the barriers that prevent disabled people from participating, whether these are environmental or social factors.

In this paper I will share a small number of examples, describing how we support students with mental health difficulties; identify key issues from our experiences and offer insights to institutional barriers. The university needs to adapt to suit a more diverse student population. We endeavour to ensure that students with mental health issues are not disadvantaged by their disability or by the UK university systems. Changing the university as well as the student contributes to our success.