Student Counselling Outcomes Research and Evaluation (SCORE)

SCORE Vision

Read our latest Blog on PCMIS where we describe our vision to Develop and deliver evidence-based practice for student mental health

The Student Counselling Outcomes Research and Evaluation (SCORE) consortium comes out of a long-running wish in the university and colleges sector to create a shared routine outcomes database to provide evidence for the sector and to improve service delivery. 

Pooling data collected routinely by counselling services will enable new analyses that are not possible to explore with data from a single service. Such analyses will inform the development of fit-for-purpose tools and contribute to the evidence base for student counselling.  

The feasibility and pilot activities commenced in October 2018 and the procedures have been adopted by the current consortium members. As a practice-research group, we aim to encourage the use of clinical outcome measures in student counselling services and to support the cascading of skills across the sector.

Progress to date has included: working with two measures – the Clinical Outcomes in Routine Evaluation Outcome Measure (CORE-OM) and the Counseling Center Assessment of Psychological Symptoms (CCAPS), troubleshooting two commonly used computer systems, and collating data from measures employed every session.

The next and current stage of the project invites more student counselling services to join the consortium and to include a wider range of outcome measures.

Funding

The work of the SCORE consortium is supported by two professional organisations; the British Association for Counselling and Psychotherapy (BACP) and the United Kingdom Council for Psychotherapy (UKCP), through financial and in-kind contributions of researcher time (BACP) and funding to develop and deliver training workshops for new SCORE members (UKCP). Training workshops are free to attend and they started in 2020.

Further information about the workshops

Read why BACP is supporting our research

See how our research links to policy

News

Findings from our consortium indicate that counselling at in-house university services is effective at improving depression, anxiety, wellbeing, social anxiety and academic distress.

Read our latest paper: Routine outcome monitoring (ROM) and feedback in university student counselling and mental health services: Considerations for practitioners and service leads

Follow us on X @ConsortiumScore

We work with

Bangor University
University of Bradford
Leeds Trinity University
UCL
The University of Sheffield
King's College London
University of York
BACP
UKCP

Past partners

Birkbeck University of London
University of Cambridge
Keele University
University of Oxford