Case study data of one central document from the university support system is analysed to demonstrate how it is influenced by both academic and healthcare institutional practices and contexts, demonstrating the blurred boundaries of institutions and discussing the experiences of the students with this document.
Student mental health is an increasing concern for educational and healthcare institutions with the role of universities in therapeutically treating students under debate (e.g. Universities UK, 2015). Changes to the support systems at many universities have resulted in students being expected to take ever more active roles in increasingly textually-mediated internal and external services (Coren, 2016; Mair, 2016), raising questions about how students navigate these services to gain access to support. This presentation discusses part of my PhD project which investigated students' mental health literacy practices using an ethnographic approach. Multiple semi-structured interviews were undertaken with student participants across the course of an academic year alongside contextualising work involving document collection and interviews with campus stakeholders. Transcribed data was analysed using reflexive thematic analysis with themes drawn directly from the data (Braun and Clarke, 2006; 2012). Focussing on one key document from the university's support system as a case study, I present an analysis of the way the practices associated with this text are shaped by both the healthcare and university institutional context. Previous work on health literacy (e.g. Papen, 2009), institutional literacies (e.g. Fawns & Ivanic, 2001), recontextualisation (Barton & Hamilton, 2005), and authoritative knowledge (e.g. Jordan & Davis-Floyd, 1993) is drawn on to discuss these blurred institutional boundaries and the students' experiences with this document in terms of accessing support for their mental health and communicating their needs.
