nio€5million in mental health supports is being made available to third level students from today.
Higher Education Institutions can avail of the funding to engage mental health professionals including student counsellors, assistant psychologists, nurses and GPs.
€310,000’s been allocated to national projects, €38,000 for governance/oversight while just over €400,000 is coming the way of the South East Technological University with the rest of the monies to be divided among 16 other colleges.
Minister for Further and Higher Education Simon Harris says the money will help develop robust supports; “This €5million will enable us to hire more staff across our universities to work in our mental health services and will also help to roll out national projects including a 24/7 peer service and the establishment of a national office for the psychological counsellors in higher education in Ireland so this is a very significant and important investment in mental health for students and for third-level”.
He adds; “The wellbeing of our students must be our top priority and we know that young people in Ireland face many pressures today and therefore I really want to make sure we have the supports in place in education to assist them”.
President of the Students Union at SETU, Mark Dunne, has been reacting to the news on The KCLR Daily with our Brian Redmond – hear their conversation in full here;
