Pictured left to righ: Dr Jessica Surdey, Assistant Professor of Education at NCI, co-author of the revised National Student Mental Health and Suicide Prevention Framework with Dr Ross Woods from the Higher Education Authority.
On October 13th, 2026, the Higher Education Authority (HEA) launched the revised National Student Mental Health and Suicide Prevention Framework, Folláine le Chéile. This national framework was co-authored by Dr Jessica Surdey, Assistant Professor of Education at National College of Ireland, and Dr Deirdre Byrne from Atlantic Technological University: Sligo.
At the launch, Dr Jessica Surdey and Dr Deirdre Byrne, who led the revision of the framework in collaboration with the higher education sector and other stakeholders, gave a panel discussion to provide an overview of the framework review and development process, alongside remarks from Marie Clarke, Chair of the National Forum Student Engagement and Teaching & Learning Committee (SETLE), and Dr Ross Woods of the HEA.
Dr Jessica Surdey, Assistant Professor of Education at NCI, shares, "I am thrilled to be a co-author of the new Framework, building upon the success of the first. I am very proud of the development, and shift to wellbeing and prevention, with huge potential impacts for all students in higher education in Ireland and lifelong."
About the National Student Mental Health and Suicide Prevention Framework
In 2020, The National Student Mental Health and Suicide Prevention Framework [NSMHSPF] for Ireland (Fox, et al., 2020) was published by the HEA. Informed by international evidence that called for an embedded whole-system approach, the framework set out several recommendations for the higher education sector, drawn from Connecting for Life: Ireland’s National Strategy to Reduce Suicide 2015-2020, the World Health Organization, international suicide prevention best practice, and higher education policies. Since the framework’s publication in 2020, progress has been made in implementing it across all higher education institutions with 56% of actions in the framework reported as having been achieved or being ongoing (HEA, a2025).
The revised National Student Mental Health and Suicide Prevention Framework
Building on its original foundations, the revised framework adds a holistic wellbeing perspective with streamlined themes, assigning clear actions and responsibilities. The revised Framework looks at the whole campus. It is a stakeholder based, student centred approach to mental health, wellbeing, and suicide prevention. Not only does the revised framework build on how one looks at wellbeing, but the revised framework also provides an implementation and monitoring roadmap to enable HEIs to assess, review, reflect, and plan their support for student mental health and wellbeing. Implementation and monitoring blueprints are accompanied by a suite of documents to inform HEI mental health policies; mental health in the curriculum; and resources of international best practice.
In 2026, six years on from the original framework, the National Student Mental Health and Suicide Prevention Framework is broadening to include an all-encompassing preventative approach that involves all stakeholders across the higher education community, recognising the needs of students regardless of how they engage with their institution, including on-campus, part-time, blended, and distance learners. This “whole-campus approach” is significant because it illustrates that student wellbeing is a shared responsibility across all areas of an institution, with wellbeing now going to be embedded with HEI’s curriculums.
The HEA has provided funding to researchers in University College Dublin to work with the Psychological Counsellors in Higher Education Ireland since 2022 to create and standardise a national dataset for student counselling services. The revised framework has identified this set of standardised variables, established a secure database to store the data and begun transfer of HEI data to a new ‘national student counselling service database’ operational from next year. For the first time, this will create a standardised dataset of presenting issues at counselling services across higher education institutions, allowing counselling services to produce reports to identify trends, areas that need attention or that are emerging as needs. This information will allow HEI’s to be more aware of what students are dealing with, more sensitive to pressing issues, and enable them to take preventative action if they can see a pressing emerging need. Not only will this information be invaluable when seeking to be more aware of mental health and wellbeing in general, but it also enables HEI’s to engage in relevant and informed conversations about mental health and wellbeing in real time, so that the whole campus is aware and prioritising the mental health of students.
You can read the revised National Student Mental Health and Suicide Prevention Framework here.
Dr Jessica Surdey will be presenting about developing the Framework at NCI's 75th Anniversary Academic Conference on the 29th of October.
You can Register to Attend here.
National College of Ireland’s mission is to, ‘change lives through education,’ but across the College, staff, faculty, and Student Supports are aware that in order to change lives through education, students need to be able to engage with their education which is why mental health and wellbeing awareness is a key priority at NCI and always will be. Across all faculty, we want students to feel confident that they can ask for support and help when needed, and that support will be provided in a safe and trusted space so that all students feel encouraged to thrive in their course. Across NCI’s campuses, we want students to not just thrive academically, but to be safe and well at work and in their personal lives too, which is why we note the significance of the revised National Student Mental Health and Suicide Prevention Framework. Well done to Dr Jessica Surdey for her contributions to such an important and impactful national framework; we hope that its implementation will bring positive impact and crucial conversations.