About the Mental Health and Wellbeing Service

The Mental Health and Wellbeing Service is staffed by a team of experienced and qualified Practitioners who can provide therapeutic support to you whilst you are studying at University of Birmingham. We work with students for up to 5 sessions, concentrating on the issues that are causing you the most distress. We work with students who are experiencing a whole range of psychological or emotional issues including depression, anxiety, stress, procrastination, perfectionism, relationship issues and many more.

Depending on the nature of your issue, you may see one of our Therapeutic Practitioners who utilise counselling skills and a range of psychological approaches to provide support and tools to help with the problems you are facing. For more complex issues you may be referred to speak with a Counsellor from either Mental Health and Wellbeing Service, our partnership provider, Randstad, or UBHeard for either ongoing sessions or signposting to the most appropriate service. All Counsellors are BACP accredited. 

When you register, you will be asked how you prefer to attend sessions. You can choose to attend sessions face-to-face or online, or indicate no preference.  Please note that we do currently have a limited capacity for face-to-face sessions for some aspects of our service, so you may wait longer if you can only attend sessions in-person.

 

Accessing the Aston Webb Student Hub (In-Person Appointments)

In-person appointments are held at the Student Services Aston Webb Hub which is R7 on the Campus maps and directions (What3words: rocket.limbs.remedy)

You can find the Aston Webb Student Services Hub by:

Going through the main entrance to the Aston Webb building and turning to the left. You will see the following sign with an arrow pointing towards the Aston Webb Student Services Hub. 

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You walk down the corridor and the entrance to the Student Services Aston Webb Hub will be on your right.

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Alternatively, you can enter via the Brammall building and go through the doors just past the coffee shop. You will walk you the corridor and the entrance to the Student Services Aston Webb Hub will be on your left. 

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The reception looks like this:

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Please take a seat in reception and your Practitioner will come and collect you out of the double doors. They will call your first name (or preferred name if you have supplied one) You see photos of our Practitioners here: Meet the team (birmingham.ac.uk)

Your Practitioner will show down to our consultation rooms where you will have your appointments. We have several consultation rooms available, but they typically look like this

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Confidentiality

As a confidential service we ensure:

  • Your contact and information which you provide to the Mental Health & Wellbeing Service will be treated in confidence. Access to this information is limited to those staff who work within Student Wellbeing Services at the University of Birmingham and system administrators working on the behalf of Student Wellbeing Services. Information will only be disclosed to others without your consent where there is a legal requirement to do so, or where the University believes that there is a serious threat to your, or another person's, safety based on the information you disclose.
  • Academic staff e.g lecturers do NOT not have access to any information about your contact with us, including the fact that you have made contact.
  • We do not discuss your contact with us with family members, or anyone else who contacts us requesting information about you.

There are some situations where we would need to pass on personal information to someone outside of Student Wellbeing Services. These are:

  • When we would be liable to civil or criminal court procedure if the information was not disclosed.
  • If we believe that you, or a third party is in serious danger.

In these circumstances we would not normally break confidentiality without your consent, if at all possible, and only to the extent necessary in the circumstances.

Record keeping

Our record keeping is fully compliant with the General Data Protection Regulations (GDPR). 

Your notes are stored in compliance with Data Protection requirements and can only be accessed by staff who work in the Mental Health and Wellbeing Service. 

We will keep electronic notes about your contact with us for a period of seven years. After this period, notes are securely deleted from our systems and we can no longer access information about your contact with us. 

Accessing your records

Under the General Data Protection Regulations (GDPR) you have certain rights to access records held about you. If you wish to see your counselling records, please make a request in writing to the University's Legal Services: email legalservices@contacts.bham.ac.uk.

 

Colleges staff intranet

Professional Services staff intranet