Talking to us in private

At the Student Services Hub, our front desks are screened for your privacy but we understand if you’d like to speak somewhere more confidential. We have semi-private pods within the Hub as well as a private room for any conversations you don’t want to have within the main space. Just let the Student Hub Assistant know or simply indicate to the sign on the desk and we will be happy to move to a more private space.

Waiting to see a counsellor

The waiting time to see a counsellor varies through the year due to demand. Although we have several counsellors working for us during term time, wait time for an assessment is normally around 3-4 weeks and a block of counselling sessions could involve a wait of another up to 8 weeks depending on how many students are on our waiting list. To put that in context, the NHS waiting list for counselling is normally around 8 months, and we strive to keep waiting times as short as possible. A counsellor will assess your needs at your 30 minute assessment appointment and short-term focal counselling sessions of 50 minutes are then allocated on a priority basis. If students are in severe crisis, we will make sure that they are seen more quickly, even if this is just to talk to the student and refer them to another service that best meets their needs, such as a GP.

Disabled students: seeing an Accessibility Adviser 

The waiting time to see an Adviser from the Accessibility & Inclusion Service varies through the year due to demand. Wait time for an assessment of needs is normally around 4-6 weeks, but you can normally see an Adviser for a short appointment within about 3 weeks if your needs are more urgent. To speed up the process, you should complete your Initial Identification of Needs form and upload it via Document Uploader on the Portal, under ‘I want to …Upload a Student Services Document’, as soon as possible; make sure you include any medical or psychological evidence too so that we don’t have to come back and ask you for that. 

Getting support out of hours

The Student Hub and our advisory team works 9-5 Monday to Friday (and the Hub opens at 10 on a Tuesday). We appreciate that you may need to access support when we aren’t here to help and we have a dedicated page on our website to help until you are able to speak with us. If you are in crisis during that time, you should contact the NHS on 111 or 999, or an organisation such as the Samaritans, Breathing Space or Papyrus UK.

In an emergency

The Student Services Hub is not an emergency service. If you are having an emergency, you should contact the emergency services immediately on 999. You can also check our out of hours support here. If you are in crisis and think that you might be at risk of harm, you should contact your GP or an organisation such as Samaritans. If you believe someone else is at risk of harm, you should call the Police on 999 immediately. Details of how to do this when on campus are available here 

Specialist Advisers

Although our skilled Student Hub Assistants are able to answer many of your questions – typically, the Hub team answers around 87% of enquiries on the front line – we also have a team of specialist advisers supporting us, including staff with experience in mental health, disability, money advice, immigration advice, careers, student learning services, or academic/fees/programmes enquiries. If we can’t respond to your enquiry right away, we’ll refer you to the right person and will make sure you know what the next steps will be.

The Hub post boxes

Need to hand in a form or paperwork but can’t make it in during our opening times or don’t want to queue? Our post boxes are there to help! Use one of the envelopes supplied on top of the post-box, or bring along your own, and post for us to process. We aim to process documents within 5 working days. Please be sure to include your Student ID Number on the envelope.

Keeping your information confidential

Keeping your information confidential is very important to us and we have strict processes and guidelines that apply if information does have to be shared. Normally we will only share information outwith Student Support Services (which includes the Student Hub team) if you or someone else is at risk of harm, or if you have given us consent to share the information so that you can receive the best level of support. You can find the full details of our confidentiality and data sharing policy online.

Will I have to queue again if I need to see another service?

If you come to the Hub and speak to an Adviser but then need to be referred to another service, the Adviser you are speaking to will be able to help you with that. For example, some students register for counselling but they are referred to the Student Adviser (Mental Health & Wellbeing.) The Hub Assistant or Adviser you are working with should help you so that you don’t have to re-join a queue in the Hub.

An apple a day…

Sometimes it’s hard to fit in your 5 a day – which is why we have free apples in the Hub for you to snack on while waiting to speak to the team.

We hope this information about the Student Services Hub has been useful! If you have any other questions please #JustAsk and email us at ask@stir.ac.uk