Student Services

First Contact Appointments

You can access our Counselling service by attending an initial First Contact appointment with our team. They will discuss with you what counselling options are available to you and, if appropriate, will then ask you to return to Student Wellbeing for a Counselling assessment.

Counselling assessments can be booked on the day you wish to be seen and will be allocated on a first come, first served basis. You may book an appointment during the Sudent Wellbeing Centre opening hours.

Please note, if it is deemed appropriate for you to attend a counselling assessment, and you do not do so within 2 months of being seen at your appointment, you will be asked to attend another appointment to ascertain if counselling is still appropriate.

Student Wellbeing First Contact appointment times:
– Monday – Friday 10am-4pm
– Thursday evenings (during term-time only) 5-7pm

Please fill in our First Contact appointment form to start this process.

Ongoing Appointments

During your counselling assessment the Counsellor will agree a course of action with you. This may include ongoing counselling sessions (up to a maximum of six sessions each academic year) with our service. You will then be put onto our waiting list and an appointment will be offered to you as soon as possible. We do our very best to ensure that you do not have to wait too long, however, there are times during the academic year when there is a high demand and then you may have to wait a little longer for a continuing appointment. You will be advised of this when you see us.

Full appointments last for 50 minutes and begin and end on time. Our Counselling Service offers short-term counselling of up to six sessions, usually on a weekly basis.

Late Arrival, Cancellation and Non-attendance

You will be offered up to six counselling appointments. It is your responsibility to ensure that you are available for all the appointments offered. Holidays, days out, course trips and reading weeks which happen within your series of counselling sessions will be counted towards your series of appointments. You can have up to one appropriately cancelled session throughout your series of counselling sessions, after which point if there are any further cancellations you will be automatically closed. (Appropriately cancelled is telling us before 8.30am of the day of your appointment).

If you Do Not Attend (DNA) for an appointment within your series of counselling, you will also be automatically closed.

Confidentiality

We offer a confidential service. The information you give to us may be shared with other members of the team in order for us to be able to provide you with the best support available. We will not pass on information about you to others without your permission, except in exceptional circumstances. This is usually where there are concerns that either yourself or someone else is suffering or at risk of significant harm.

In accordance with the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) the Counselling Service will retain any records it holds about you for a period of seven years, after which time they will be securely destroyed. These records will remain confidential within the Service, except in the unlikely event they are requested as evidence in a Court.

For the purpose of determining additional support costs the University is required to provide the names of Further Education students and the number of sessions attended in its Student Return to the Higher Education Statistics Agency (HESA).

Complaints

If you are unhappy with any aspect of the Counselling Service then please let us know. You can make your complaint verbally to your counsellor or in writing to the Head of Student Wellbeing.

If you are not happy with the response to your complaint, you may make a formal complaint to the Head of Student Services who will then investigate the complaint according to the written regulations of the University.

If you feel that your Counsellor or the Counselling Service has acted in a way contrary to the Ethical Framework of the British Association for Counselling and Psychotherapy, you have a right to make a formal professional complaint to the BACP – Tel: 0870 443 5252.