Introduction
The intervention I have designed seeks to support new international students from China that may be at risk of mental health problems. I intend to support social integration by creating a programme of events that foster a greater sense of community between first and third-year students. As Year 1 Leader in Fine Art Photography at Camberwell, I have witnessed many students struggling to settle in and seen how this impacts their health and wellbeing. Numerous studies over more than a decade (Rienties et al, 2012; Spencer-Oatey, 2017; Frampton, Smith & Smithies, 2022; Ebel, 2024; Banerjee, 2024) have concluded that significantly more could be done to support Chinese students with their mental health as they attend university in the UK.
I coordinate disability and health support within Photography and manage the implementation of ISA’s (Individual Support Agreements) where required. In a previous blog post I considered the discrepancy between numbers of home and international students engaging with these support structures, inspiring me to try and understand this issue in more depth. In 2025-26, we are expecting over 50% of our first-years to be Chinese, so it is essential our support systems are adapted to assist the full cohort, and I have focused my intervention to specifically explore the intersection of mental health and wellbeing with the experience of international students from China.
Context
Russell, Thomson and Rosenthal (2008) list contributing factors to the poor mental and physical health of many international students:
‘loneliness, lack of support, few meaningful relationships with host nationals, culture shock, discrimination and racism, language difficulties, unfamiliar modes of teaching and learning, a changing sense of identity, unrealistic family and self-expectations, financial problems, crises at home, and adverse experiences in the host country.’
The impact of these experiences can be compounded for students from China due to minimal engagement with support structures within the university. Observations of my own students correlate directly with the findings of Russell, Thomson and Rosenthal (2008) that ‘being a student from PRC [People’s Republic of China] was a significant predictor of not acting on a perceived need for help from the health service’. Their report considers causes for this, including lack of language confidence, concerns around privacy and the potential stigma associated with counselling.
Research by the UK Council for International Student Affairs (2025) and Bradley (2000) suggests many students from China are unsure of the confidentiality of support systems and consequently concerned about disclosures being reported back to their parents or tutors. Filial Piety is a core concept of Confucianism, the dominant ethical framework in China, where citizens are expected to respect their elders and honor their parents, avoiding anything that might cause them shame or embarrassment.
Filial piety may also apply between student and tutor, so it’s possible that students from China may prefer to disclose personal problems to a friend rather than a tutor, with whom interactions are more formal. Russell, Thomson and Rosenthal (2008) conclude that ‘having friends who are known to have used the university services was the strongest positive predictor of student help-seeking’ and suggest ‘approaches that capitalize on and strengthen relationships among international students …, for example the establishment of peer mentoring or support groups that discuss issues and share help and information’.
Approach
My intended intervention would support the development of friendships and support networks amongst home and international students. Initially this would be through structured activities, but these would be facilitated to encourage the continuation of conversation beyond the session. All first years would be included, with volunteers from the third year. In previous years, Year 3 students have been keen to gain teaching experience by running crits and tutorials with Year 1. Feedback from my Course Leader and Year 3 Leader have encouraged me to incorporate this within the programme to maximise engagement and the perceived benefit from a third-year perspective.
I would run two studio-based sessions in the Autumn, with optional social events in between. The first session would be a fun, orientation-style activity, in the second, third-years would run small informal crits with groups of first-year students. In the Spring, the interaction would be structured around course content, such as the Year 3 offsite exhibition and Year 1 Open Studio, and finally in the Summer term the first-years would be asked to assist the graduating students with the installation of their degree show. In my initial design, I intended to allocate fixed groups of students for the year, but feedback has helped me understand that a more fluid structure would make it easier to accommodate fluctuating group numbers, so I would arrange groups on the day of each activity to ensure an even balance of students from different year groups and backgrounds.
The opening session would be designed as an ice-breaker to initiate conversation and informally begin to tackle some of the identified stressors for international students. Suggestions from my PgCert peers have helped me design a treasure hunt, where small groups of first-years with one third-year would be tasked with finding things that are typically challenging for new starters, formalizing an opportunity for the third-year to share their previous experience. This could include a particular technician, equipment or a workshop that students often avoid through uncertainty or shyness. A chocolate prize would encourage a sense of fun and motivation.
The second half of the first session would involve posing questions on a noticeboard (either physical or digital) that asked for recommendations about settling into the local area. These would be a mixture of serious and lighthearted prompts, such as recommendations for restaurants and shops or things to avoid. The UK Council for International Student Affairs (2025) suggests that international students find familiar food from home to alleviate some of the symptoms of culture shock. I hope this activity would be of practical assistance with that, but also the starting point for a regularly used community noticeboard.
Language barriers are often cited as a significant obstacle to building strong social relationships between home and international students. Ebel (2024) describes how the Chinese schooling system prioritises competency in written rather than spoken English, a factor exacerbated by university language qualifications. This can mean that students from China with a good level of written English may still struggle conversationally. I hope that the noticeboard will provide a written opportunity for students to ‘chat’, mitigating difficulties in spoken conversation.
Challenges and measures of success
Ebel’s (2024) report found that a majority of Chinese students studying in the UK wished to have more British friends but found it more difficult than they anticipated due to language difficulties, cultural differences and frequently being in classes with large numbers of other Chinese students. Spencer-Oatey (2017) explains how ‘factors such as personality, preference for an “easy option”, emotional satisfaction from mixing with people with a similar background and language factors all interact to mitigate against high levels of social integration’. Ensuring groups contain a mixture of international and home students should provide a gentle push towards integration, with activities designed to make conversation unavoidable.
The mental health and wellbeing benefits of improved social integration can be significant and will be the key factor I intend to measure within my intervention; however these results may be long-ranging, and not easily measured within a single academic term. The noticeboard would provide some tangible indication of whether efforts to instigate a conversation and sense of community beyond the facilitated sessions was successful. Interviews with participants could be used to gather feedback and compared to the experiences of the second year who would not have been involved in the project. It would also be interesting to observe whether engagement with support systems in the first year are impacted by the project, though this would be difficult to prove within the given timeframe.
As well as impact on mental health, social integration is also proven to bring additional benefits to students- improving attainment and retention through creating a stronger sense of belonging (Banerjee, 2024). In the Peer-to-Peer presentations, Maria remarked that evidence of success might be extremely subtle, such as an increase in students greeting one another on campus. I was touched by this understanding of what I was trying to achieve, and this has motivated me to pursue the project despite the risk of it yielding no clear evidence of successful impact.
Everett’s (2013) article ‘Intergroup Contact Theory: Past, Present, and Future’ talks of how even the most basic form of contact between groups of differing identities, if organised so that participants are meeting as equals, is proven to reduce prejudice towards ‘others’ in most cases. Essentially, the more that students of different backgrounds work together on group activities, the more accepting of one another they become. This seems to be a valuable and achievable goal that is beneficial to all.
Conclusion
The issue of Chinese students suffering from social isolation, culture shock and language difficulties is widely felt throughout UAL, and my concerns for my own group of students have frequently been echoed by my peers on the PgCert. While all the research suggests that social integration programmes are the intervention most likely to help with this issue, it does appear that if there was a universally successful solution it would have been widely implemented by now. Numerous societies and networks are offered by the university for international students, yet these don’t seem to have resolved the issues highlighted here.
There are nuances within the approach I am proposing that suggest that design at a local level might be more impactful, taking into account the skills required for different courses of study, or the type of support that would be desirable between year groups. Establishing support networks in-course could help to build a more genuine sense of community rather than risk being seen by students as another well-meaning initiative run by an organisation that may not actually know their name.
References
Banerjee, P. (2024) ‘Connecting the dots: a systematic review of explanatory factors linking contextual indicators, institutional culture and degree awarding gaps’ in Higher Education Evaluation and Development. Leeds: Emerald Publishing. https://www.emerald.com/insight/content/doi/10.1108/heed-07-2023-0020/full/html
Bradley, G. (2000). Responding Effectively to the Mental Health Needs of International Students. Higher Education, 39(4), 417–433. http://www.jstor.org/stable/3447940
Ebel, C.P. (2024) How can UK universities improve their strategies for tackling integration challenges among Chinese students? Higher Education Policy Institute and Uoffer Global. Available at: https://www.hepi.ac.uk/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/HEPI-Report-183-Tackling-integration-challenges-among-Chinese-students.pdf (Accessed: 24th June 2025)
Everett, J.A.C. (2013) ‘Intergroup Contact Theory: Past, Present, and Future’, The Inquisitive Mind, Magazine 2: Issue17. http://www.in-mind.org/article/intergroup-contact-theory-past-present-and-future
Frampton, N., Smith, J. and Smithies, D. (2022) ‘Understanding Student Mental Health Inequalities: International Students’, Student Minds. Available at: https://www.studentminds.org.uk/uploads/3/7/8/4/3784584/2022_international_students_report_final.pdf[Accessed July 2nd, 2025]
Gu, Q. (2009). Maturity and Interculturality: Chinese Students’ Experiences in UK Higher Education. European Journal of Education, 44(1), 37–52. http://www.jstor.org/stable/25481889
Rienties, B., Beausaert, S., Grohnert, T., Niemantsverdriet, S., & Kommers, P. (2012). Understanding academic performance of international students: the role of ethnicity, academic and social integration. Higher Education, 63(6), 685–700. http://www.jstor.org/stable/41477908
Russell, J., Thomson, G., & Rosenthal, D. (2008). International Student Use of University Health and Counselling Services. Higher Education, 56(1), 59–75. http://www.jstor.org/stable/29735225
Spencer-Oatey, H., Dauber, D., Jing, J., & Lifei, W. (2017). Chinese students’ social integration into the university community: hearing the students’ voices. Higher Education, 74(5), 739–756. http://www.jstor.org/stable/26448801
UK Council for International Student Affairs (2025) Facing culture shock. Available at: https://www.ukcisa.org.uk/student-advice/life-in-the-uk/facing-culture-shock/ (Accessed: 2nd July 2025).
UK Council for International Student Affairs (2025) Mental health support in the UK. Available at: https://www.ukcisa.org.uk/student-advice/life-in-the-uk/mental-health-support-in-the-uk (Accessed: 2nd July 2025).