Student out of Hours Wellbeing Support

The service is required to provide a point of contact for students who need support when the University’s daytime support service is not available. This will include providing a crisis service. This will be required on weekends and weekdays from 4.30pm until 8.30am the following day.

The service must be free for students to access and use. It must provide a quick response within one minute and students must have immediate access to a counsellor and not be directed through a triage system. Counsellors must be able to provide support by telephone and text. You should provide an interpretation service or language assistance for students who are not native English speakers. Hindi, Nigerian and Nepalese are our most commonly spoken foreign languages.

Counsellors should be BACP qualified or equivalent to level 4 or above with supervision in line with BACP recommendations.

You should have safeguarding procedures in place for situations involving children and vulnerable adults and protocols in place to handle high risk students including risk assessments with escalation procedures for crisis situations.

The service must validate each service user to ensure only eligible university students utilise the service. Supplier responses should include details of how that will be achieved along with any salient options.