The effectiveness of UK student counselling services: an analysis using the CORE System

ABSTRACT

Despite concern surrounding the mental health of students, brought about by the government's policy of widening participation and increasing demands upon students, the effectiveness of student counselling has been a neglected research area. This study examines data from seven UK student counselling services using the CORE System in the routine evaluation of their services. Results indicate that counselling is effective, with 70% (service range 67% to 83%) of clients with outcome measures available showing reliable improvement on the CORE-OM from pre- to post-therapy. However, students who complete a course of counselling show significantly greater improvement, according to practitioner pre- and post-therapy severity ratings of depression and anxiety, than those clients who drop out or have an unplanned therapy ending (effect size 1.03, 0.85, respectively). The stage at which students drop out of therapy is important, with those students dropping out of therapy before the third session being the most vulnerable. The implications of these findings are discussed.

Keywords:

• student counselling
• effectiveness
• CORE
• practice-based evidence

Acknowledgements

Research was funded by the Priorities and Needs Research and Development Levy via Leeds Mental Health Teaching NHS Trust. Thanks go to the student counselling practitioners who took part in the evaluation of their services using the CORE System and who submitted their data for analysis.

Notes

1. The cut-off values and reliable change index have been multiplied by 10 from the original values quoted in Evans et al. (2002). This is to correspond with the multiplication of the mean scores by 10 to obtain the clinical score (see Barkham et al., 2006a).

2. Service evaluation operations have since been transferred to CORE IMS whereby services collate and analyse their own data in house using CORE-PC software (see Mellor-Clark & Barkham, 2006).

3. See note 1.

4. See note 1.