About the team

Our Mental Health & Wellbeing team offer the opportunity to talk with a practitioner in a supportive setting about anything that is affecting your emotional and psychological wellbeing. The practitioner will not tell you what to think, feel or do in relation to your situation. But they may suggest information that might be helpful for you, or who else or which service might be helpful for other support, if needed.  However, the emphasis will be on offering you non-judgmental support and trying to understand, with you, what you are experiencing. We hope that through the practitioners support, you will be able to develop your own answers and ways of managing or overcoming your difficulties, enabling you to focus on your studies and enjoy your time here at University of Staffordshire.

If you feel uncertain about the suitability of our service, we encourage you to contact us as we may be able to help. We know that each person's mental wellbeing difficulty can affect them in different ways so the support we offer is flexible and tailored to each individual.

Once you have submitted the form, we will contact you to arrange an appointment.  We aim to respond to forms submitted to our Mental Health & Wellbeing team within two working days (not including weekends or bank holidays).

To enable students to access and use our support most effectively, we offer a one-at-a-time model of support to most students who contact us.  This approach means each appointment will be a standalone appointment – with the option to arrange further appointments during the academic year.  A single appointment may be sufficient in itself (many students find that one appointment is enough).  But you can book another appointment with our team if you feel you need to at any stage.  This gives time to reflect on what was discussed and to try out any suggestions or other options of information and support before making another appointment.  We can also offer follow on support where appropriate.  In addition, we can signpost or refer you to NHS or other community services, particularly where specialist or longer-term support is needed.

Please note, the Mental Health & Wellbeing Team currently provides appointments by phone, video call or face to face.  We encourage you to think about the issue(s) that you would most like to focus on in your appointment, as hopefully this will help you to make the best use of the time during the appointment.

Evening appointments are provided for those on full week placements or students who have other commitments in office hours. Evening appointments will be online or phone only.  

When opting for online or a phone appointment, try to be in a safe and private space where you can feel comfortable to talk for the duration of the appointment.

If you are going to have the appointment via Microsoft Teams, close down other applications or programmes on your device so that you’re not interrupted by these.

If we have any difficulty trying to contact you via Microsoft Teams due to technical difficulties, or lose the connection with you during the appointment, we will attempt to call you by phone and/or email you to let you know.  Please do contact the Mental Health & Wellbeing team by email at student-wellbeing@staffs.ac.uk 

We will not record the appointment and we ask that you also do not record the appointment.  (There is no record function within Microsoft Teams for a video call between two people – the record function is only available for meetings of more than two people).

If you have recently had an appointment with one of our practitioners and want to arrange another appointment, please complete the online form again (there is a shorter version if you have completed it within the last 3 months – follow the guidance in the form).  If you have any difficulties filling out the form or have any queries, please email student-wellbeing@staffs.ac.uk.

We can help you in a variety of different ways.

• Psycho-education to support your learning and understanding of your own mental health and wellbeing.
• Anxiety and stress response work
• Cognitive behavioural interventions
• Solution focussed therapy
• Problem solving
• Positive behaviour change & motivational interviewing
• Safety planning 
• Help you to access external services by referral, providing information, advocacy and support.
• Assist you to liaise with specialist agencies.
• Provide a safe listening space to talk through anything concerning you.   

Our service operates in compliance with the University's Data Protection Code of practice and Student Privacy Statement.

 Our Mental Health & Wellbeing team provides support to students who are currently enrolled at the University.

If you have recently withdrawn from your course or are no longer currently enrolled due to a break in study, we may still be able to offer a one-off transition appointment to help you identify and connect with appropriate support in your local area or through your GP. Ongoing support is not usually available once you are no longer a registered student, although exceptional circumstances may be considered on a case-by-case basis.

If you are unsure whether you are eligible for support, or you have concerns about your wellbeing, please contact the team. We will always do our best to advise you on the most appropriate support available.

If you are a University of Staffordshire student studying at a Partner institution and wish to access counselling, you will need to do this at the institution where you are studying. For a list of Partner institutions, please see UK Partnerships and International Partnerships.

If you are a student studying abroad, on placement outside the UK or a student who lives abroad and studies online and you require mental health and wellbeing services, please contact your local GP/psychological services for support; your local university/study abroad contact may also help and advise you. We also have Self Help Guides & apps and online resources  which may be of benefit to you, and we will where possible support the Study Abroad team and/or university partners to support you. 

In order to maintain and develop professional and ethical standards, all our practitioners are registered with a professional body and adhere to their respective ethical standards.

We have a staff team of professionally trained and qualified practitioners who are used to working with students experiencing a wide variety of difficulties. However, there will be some instances where support from us will not be appropriate or may not be helpful. In such instances we can signpost you to, and sometimes liaise with, other external professionals and organisations. We also have Mental Health and Wellbeing Advisors who work out of hours on site who can help support and signpost you.

Please note that practitioners are not medically qualified and therefore cannot provide a medical diagnosis nor prescribe medication – you would need to see your GP for this. If you are not yet registered locally, please see our health pages https://www.staffs.ac.uk/students/support/student-health-services

We hope that any student will feel able to access us and that no student will feel excluded from doing so in relation to their ethnic or cultural background, gender, age, social class, religious belief, physical ability, sexual orientation, etc. If you do experience any barriers to accessing us we would encourage you to get in touch and send us your feedback.

Any information that we produce is available in alternative formats on request. Please ask a member of our admin team or one of our practitioners if you would like something produced in a different format.

Our practitioners are usually able to provide a supporting statement for Exceptional Circumstances if you have been or are coming for appointments during the period that you feel your studies have been affected. But we cannot usually provide a statement if this is not the case, and suggest you contact the Student Advice Team for advice on who might be able to provide a supporting statement for your claim, if this is needed.

If you would like to access our service and arrange an appointment, please see our home page  https://www.staffs.ac.uk/students/support/student-wellbeing-and-safeguarding  . 

If you have any difficulties filling out the form or have any queries you can get in touch with us by telephone on 01782 294976 or by emailing student-wellbeing@staffs.ac.uk.

If you are seeking support outside our opening hours see Emergency and 24-hour Support.

We are open Monday to Thursday, 8.45am – 5pm & Fridays, 8.45am - 4.30pm, except for public holidays. We can also offer limited evening appointments where your course demands mean you are not available within these office hours. 

You may also be interested or feel it more appropriate to engage with the following services as well as/or instead of us;

• A GP (General Practitioner), can assess and diagnose many common Mental Health Conditions, they can also consider prescription of medication, for surgeries close to the Stoke Campus check - https://www.staffs.ac.uk/students/support/student-health-services.  For those close to your home address, if not local to the Stoke Campus, see Find a GP - NHS
• Many areas of the country have access to a local IAPT (Improving Access to Psychological Therapies), offering therapeutic interventions to help a person in managing various mental health conditions in Stoke we have https://staffsandstoketalkingtherapies.nhs.uk/  who accept self-referrals, but you must be registered with a local GP. For IAPT Services outside of Staffordshire and Stoke on Trent see - Find an NHS psychological therapies service (IAPT).
• If you are struggling with feelings of loneliness do, consider talking to the Students Union to find out what is going on and of various clubs and societies The Students' Union.
• Student Advice Team  – course related difficulties can impact on wellbeing and if your main concern is related to your course the Student Advice Team may be able to support you. They can also help if you have a diagnosed mental, physical or learning support need and you are looking for adjustments to study.

Our team of practitioners are here to support any student experiencing mental wellbeing difficulties.  All students who feel they may benefit from our service can use it. If you are experiencing feelings of being overwhelmed, problems are piling up or you have a personal difficulty that you are struggling to cope with, the mental health & wellbeing service can help support you.

If you would like to leave us some feedback, either anonymously or with a view to discussing your comments/ideas further, then please fill in our Student Wellbeing feedback form it would be great to hear from you.