About our ready-to-run training

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The easiest way to book our training for your team:

1. Select a date and time that works for you and your organisation.

2. Pay by debit/credit card, or request an invoice.

3. We'll contact you to agree and confirm your selected delivery time.

 

You will receive the details of your session and a Microsoft Teams link to provide to your attendees, and we'll deliver the session live and online. After the session, you will receive a report of the feedback from your participants and a resource pack to share with those who attended.

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This is a half-day session lasting 3½ hours.

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About this session

When faced with a distressed student, it can be easy for your team members to feel overwhelmed or take on too much. This half-day online session is relevant for teams and cohorts who work with students. It will help them feel confident about responding to a distressed student in a boundaried, role-appropriate and effective way.

 

The session will consider the nature of distress and the way in which a student might present. This will be followed by exploring a range of practical skills you need to best respond to a distressed student – whether in-person or in the context of remote working and study. We will then focus on how to respond to a student who presents at a higher level of risk – such as a student who mentions suicide.
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Who is this session for?

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This session is relevant to teams and cohorts who work with students in higher education and who might find themselves responding to a student in distress.

 

This includes:

• Academics - such as personal tutors, module leaders, and lecturers

• Professional services practitioners - such as disability advisers, welfare advisers, finance advisers, or international student advisers

• Colleagues working in a university enquiry service, a faculty or service front desk team, or a university helpdesk

• Accommodation staff

• Security officers

• Colleagues managing student conduct cases

• Managers of student-facing teams who may need to support their team members to respond effectively to a distressed student

• Students' union advisers

 

While this training is aimed at higher education, colleagues in further education or other similar settings will also find the content very relevant. This session is mainly aimed at staff who are not clinically trained or in a specialist mental health support role; it is focused instead on providing the majority of university staff with a clear, practical understanding of how to respond to a distressed student.

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Colleagues who have attended our other course on ‘Balancing compassion with boundaries’ will find it helpful to attend this course too. The two sessions (‘Balancing compassion with boundaries’ and ‘Managing distressed students’) complement each other and focus on different types of interactions with students.

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Learning outcomes

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By the end of this course, participants will:

• Be familiar with the nature of distress and the way in which a student might present,

• Understand practical ways in which they can build a collaborative relationship with a distressed student, and respond confidently and effectively to their distress,

• Know how to set and maintain the boundaries of their role, and look after their own wellbeing during these interactions with students,

• Feel confident in knowing how to respond to a student who is presenting a high level of risk - for example, a student who mentions suicide.