Last week we made the sad announcement that the Nightline Association will be closing its doors. The charity formally came into existence in 2006, but has existed in one form or another since the dawn of the Nightline Movement in the 1970’s.
I wish I could tell you that the Association was closing its doors because our mission had been accomplished – that student mental health was no-longer an issue. I can’t. In fact, our research, published last month, shows that the number of students experiencing a mental health challenge has continued to rise, reaching more than one in every six students. More sobering still, the students most likely to experience a mental health challenge are also typically those who are the most likely to experience marginalisation and disadvantage. At a personal level, this decision was taken the same week that I learned of a colleague’s suicide, and two months after a Nightline volunteer sadly took their own life.
Nonetheless, the financial situation facing the Association means that we cannot carry on. Increasing competition for rarer and rarer pots of funding has left us unable to continue at a sustainable level, while the fall in volunteer numbers across the third sector has meant that carrying on as a volunteer-led organisation is also not viable.
We will try, in our last few months, to ensure that we leave the wider Nightline movement in as good a shape as we can. We are actively working to provide a home for our training, Nightline Quality Standards, and for Portal that will allow individual Nightlines to continue offering their vital services to students at their universities. We are also encouraging all volunteers with the Association to continue their relationship with the Nightline movement through individual nightlines, or to continue to support student mental health however we can. In this way, even if the legal organisation ceases to exist, the impacts will continue.
A few years ago, before joining the NLA, I wrote that we could end suicide if we diverted our energy, and money, towards that goal. It was in that spirit that I, and thousands of volunteers, starting before I was born, joined Nightline. I still believe that this is true, and my passion for achieving this goal is undimmed.
The Nightline Association is ending, but our work is not finished. I am profoundly grateful to everyone working across the Nightline movement, whether as trustee, staff, or volunteer, for the work that you do. I know that the work of the movement will continue into the future, and that one day, we will achieve our mission.
Professor Michael Sanders is Chair of Trustees for the Nightline Association
