The research project HoBeFo examines counselling services and structures for neurodivergent and psychologically impaired students across the student life cycle, aiming to develop more tailored counselling and support services and structures together with actors within and outside higher education.
"We aim to expand knowledge on the counselling needs and experiences of neurodivergent and psychologically impaired students and to create a scientific basis for the development of inclusive higher education structures as well as tailored counselling approaches and services for this currently growing student group."
Consortium lead
Universität Kassel & International Center for Higher Information Research
HoBeFo
Cooperation
The subproject HoBeFoX examines the alignment of counselling services and structures with the needs of neurodivergent and psychologically impaired students from experts' perspectives and develops a case study for the federal state of Hesse. It begins with a systematic assessment of the current counselling services at higher education institutions in Hesse as well as of local contextual conditions (counselling services in the vicinity of the higher education institutions, the regional availability of psychotherapeutic care, etc.). Building on the status quo analysis and mapping of the counselling landscape in Hesse, a standardised online survey of counselling professionals at higher education institutions in Lower Saxony and Hesse is conducted, which falls under the primary responsibility of this subproject. This is followed by approximately 20 expert interviews with officers responsible for students with disabilities and chronic illnesses, staff of psychological counselling centres, general student counselling, and subject-specific study counselling, as well as student representative bodies. In addition, external experts from self-help organisations, associations, and academia are to be surveyed. The aims are to understand the potentials and challenges of counselling from the perspective of counselling professionals and thereby to shed light on the supply side of counselling. Based on a synthesis of the overall findings of the research project, the results are reflected upon against the current state of academic research and condensed into a case study for the federal state of Hesse. Throughout the project, the collaborative research project is accompanied by an Expert Advisory Board, which is recruited and coordinated by the subproject HoBeFoX. Interim findings of the subproject are discussed in online workshops with experts and counselling professionals. Towards the end of the project, a larger inclusive conference for academia, practice, and interested students will be held at the University of Kassel, at which the findings of the subproject as well as of the collaborative research project will be presented. In addition, a practice guide will be developed jointly with HoBeFoS, offering recommendations for action for counselling professionals at higher education institutions as well as for examination offices and university leadership.
The subproject HoBeFoS examines the alignment of counselling services and structures with the needs of neurodivergent and psychologically impaired students from students' perspectives and develops a case study for the federal state of Lower Saxony. It begins with a systematic assessment of the current counselling services at state and non-state higher education institutions in Lower Saxony as well as of local contextual conditions (counselling services in the vicinity of the higher education institutions, the regional availability of psychotherapeutic care, etc.). Building on the status quo analysis and mapping of the counselling landscape in Lower Saxony, a standardised online survey of counselling professionals at higher education institutions in Lower Saxony and Hesse is conducted. In this survey, the subproject HoBeFoS provides support to HoBeFoX while, its primary focus lies in comprehensively reviewing the theoretical and empirical state of research and making it systematically available for further research work. This is followed by approximately 20 guided interviews with neurodivergent or psychologically impaired students from the federal states of Hesse and Lower Saxony. The aims are to understand the potentials and challenges of counselling from students' perspectives and thereby to shed light on the demand side of counselling. Based on a synthesis of the overall findings of the research project, the results are reflected upon against the current state of academic research and condensed into a case study for the federal state of Lower Saxony. In order to actively involve students as research partners, the collaborative research project is accompanied throughout its course by a Student Advisory Board, which is recruited and coordinated by the subproject HoBeFoS. Towards the end of the project, a larger inclusive conference for academia, practice, and interested students will be held at the University of Kassel, at which the findings of the subproject as well as of the collaborative research project will be presented. In addition, a practice guide will be developed jointly with HoBeFoX, offering recommendations for action for counselling professionals at higher education institutions as well as for examination offices and university leadership.
UNIFY
UNIFY researches and promotes student mental health at three university campuses using a mixed-methods approach to establish evidence-based, scalable interventions and foster sustainable cultural change in higher education institutions.
GesA Stud
GesA Stud develops and evaluates low-threshold, personalized interventions to promote student health and sustainably enhance academic success.
MUTSPRUNG
MUTSPRUNG brings together universities in North Rhine-Westphalia (NRW) and the Doctoral School NRW to conduct academic research on the mental health of students and PhD students, focusing on individual and structural factors, vulnerable phases during their studies, as well as existing barriers to and opportunities for participation.
HoPsy
HoPsy taps into analytical potential at the interdisciplinary interface of higher education research and health science and strengthens the possibility of evidence-based control by universities for the health-sensitive further development of higher education structures by providing more differentiated findings on the simultaneous influence of individual and institutional determinants.
StaR_MHI
StaR_MHI is a three-part collaborative project within the expert network of the German Center for Mental Health (DZPG), the University Hospital Halle, the Leibniz Institute of Resilience Research (LIR), the German Youth Institute (DJI), the LMU University Hospital München, the Charité University Hospital Berlin, the University Hospital Jena, the Central Institute of Mental Health Mannheim, the Leibniz Research Centre for Working Environment and Human Factors (IfADo), the Institute of Psychology and the Student Health Management of the Martin-Luther-University Halle-Wittenberg that aims to identify predictors of students’ mental health, validate them through high-frequency longitudinal analyses, and adapt and further develop suitable interdisciplinary intervention platforms for support and guidance.
CAMPUS
The CAMPUS framework developed from the project will include suitable recommendations for universities, based on a systematic investigation of risk and resilience factors at both the individual level and the structural institutional level of higher education.
StuPsy
The project investigates the development, determinants, and effects of mental health throughout the course of (under)graduate and doctoral studies.
PsychKOMPASS
PsychKOMPASS analyzes psychosocial counseling services for students nationwide, identifies needs and barriers, and, based on this analysis, develops evidence-based, practical recommendations for the sustainable improvement of services at universities and student services organizations.
GesundStudiPro
Representative comparative analyses of health among higher education students and non-students of the same age.
