Helping Students in Distress or Crisis

Many people experience emotional and psychological difficulties at some point in their lives. Usually these can be resolved by talking them through with family and friends. Sometimes professional help is needed. Most students will cope well with the stresses of academic life given reasonable support from their friends, family and academic/administrative staff. At times though, they might need more than this. In offering a student that bit of extra assistance, it is important to help within the boundaries of what you feel competent to do.

What you can do
You can listen, you can give the student time to talk, you can understand the situation from their point of view, you can be sympathetic and not dismissive, and you can make appropriate referrals. For brief guidance on what to do, please download our Supporting a Student Flowchart (2,419kB) .

Further comprehensive support and information about your role and responsibilities as a UCC staff member is available in the UCC Student Mental Health Policy. and in the UCC Child Protection Policy.

What you can't do
Although the health and welfare of the students of the college is everyone's concern, you can't solve all their problems and you can't take responsibility for their emotional state or actions.

Emergency Session
Student Counselling & Development allocates an emergency session each day, during college term, for students in acute crisis. Contact Student Counselling & Development

Staff Support
Confidential support and counselling is available for UCC staff. Further information available here.